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Title: Feudal England: Historical Studies on the Eleventh and Twelfth
Centuries

Author: John Horace Round

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FEUDAL
ENGLAND: HISTORICAL STUDIES ON THE ELEVENTH AND

TWELFTH CENTURIES ***

FEUDAL
ENGLAND

HISTORICAL STUDIES ON
THE ELEVENTH AND TWELFTH
CENTURIES

BY

J. H. ROUND

FIRST PUBLISHED 1895
Second impression 1909
Third impression 1909

PREFACE

The present work is the outcome of a wish expressed to me from more than
one quarter that I would reprint in a collected form, for the convenience of
historical students, some more results of my researches in the history of the
eleventh and twelfth centuries. But to these I have added, especially on
Domesday, so much which has not yet seen the light, that the greater portion
of the work is new, while the rest has been in part re-written. The object I
have set before myself throughout is either to add to or correct our existing
knowledge of facts. And for this I have gone in the main to records, whether
in manuscript or in print. It is my hope that the papers in this volume may
further illustrate the value of such evidence as supplementing and checking
the chroniclers for what is still, in many respects, an obscure period of our
history.

As a foreign scholar has felicitously observed:

Je lis avec plaisir le chroniqueur qui nous raconte les
événements de son époque. Les détails anecdotiques, les traits
piquants dont son œuvre est parsémée font mes délices. Mais
comment saurai-je s'il dit la vérité si les pages qu'il me
présente ne sont pas un roman de pure imagination? Dans les
chartes, au contraire, tout est authentique, certain, précis,
indubitable. Leur témoignage est contradictoirement établi,
sous le contrôle de la partie adverse, avec l'approbation et la
reconaissance de l'autorité souveraine, en présence d'une
imposante assemblée de notables qui apposent leur signature.
C'est la plus pure de toutes les sources où il soit possible de
puiser un renseignement historique.1

An instance in point will be found in the paper on 'Richard the First's change
of seal'.

A collective title for a series of studies covering the period 1050-1200, is not
by any means easy to find. But dealing as they do so largely with the origins
of 'Feudal England', I have ventured to give them this title, which may serve,
I hope, to emphasize my point that the feudal element introduced at the
Conquest had a greater influence on our national institutions than recent
historians admit.2 Even Domesday Book has its place in the study of
feudalism, rearranging, as it does, the Hundred and the Vill under Fiefs and
'Manors'.

To those in search of new light on our early mediaeval history, I commend
the first portion of this work, as setting forth, for their careful consideration,
views as evolutionary on the Domesday hide and the whole system of land
assessment as on the actual introduction of the feudal system into England.
Although I have here brought into conjunction my discovery that the
assessment of knight-service was based on a five-knights unit, irrespective of
area or value, and my theory that the original assessment of land was based
on a five-hides unit, not calculated on area or value, yet the two, one need
hardly add, are, of course, unconnected. The one was an Anglo-Saxon
system, and, as I maintain, of early date; the other was of Norman
introduction, and of independent origin. My theories were formed at different
times, as the result of wholly separate investigations. That of the five-hides
unit was arrived at several years ago, but was kept back in the hope that I
might light on some really satisfactory explanation of the phenomena
presented. The solution I now propound can only be deemed tentative. I
would hope, however, that the theories I advance may stimulate others to
approach the subject, and, above all, that they may indicate to local students,
in the future, the lines on which they should work and the absolute need of
their assistance.

Perhaps the most important conclusion to which my researches point is that
Domesday reveals the existence of two separate systems in England, co-
extensive with two nationalities, the original five hides of the 'Anglo-Saxon'
in the south, and the later six carucates of the 'Danish' invaders in the north.3

No one, I may add, is better qualified to carry further these inquiries than
Prof Maitland, whose brilliant pen has illumined for us the origins of English
law. Himself engaged on the study of Domesday, he kindly offered to
withhold his conclusions until my work should have appeared.4

Among the fresh points here discussed in connection with Domesday Book
will be found the composition of the juries by whom the returns were made,
the origin and true character of the Inquisitio Eliensis, and the marked
difference of the two volumes compiled from the Domesday returns.

Of the six early surveys dealt with in conjunction with Domesday, I would
call attention to that of Leicestershire as having, it would seem, till now
remained absolutely unknown. It has long been a wish of mine to deal with
these surveys,5 not only as belonging to a period for which we have no
records, but also as illustrating Domesday Book. In 'The Knights of
Peterborough' will be found some facts relating to Hereward 'the Wake',
which seem to have eluded Mr Freeman's investigations, and even those of
Mr Tout.

In case it should suggest itself that these papers, and some in the other
portion of the work dwell at undue length on unimportant points, I would
observe that apart from the fact that even small points acquire a relative
importance from our scanty knowledge of the time, there are cases in which
their careful investigation may lead to unforeseen results. At the last
anniversary of the Royal Society, Lord Kelvin quoted these words from his
own presidential address in 1871:

Accurate and minute measurement seems to the non-scientific
imagination a less lofty and dignified work than looking for
something new. But nearly all the grandest discoveries of
science have been but the rewards of accurate measurement
and patient, long continued labour in the minute sifting of
numerical results.

The same principle applies to the study of institutional history. Whether we
are dealing with military service, with the land, with finance, or with the
king's court, 'the minute sifting' of facts and figures is the only sure method
by which we can extend knowledge.

To those who know how few are the original authorities for the period, and
how diligently these have been explored and their information exhausted, the
wonder will be not so much that there is little, as that there was anything at
all yet left to discover.

In a work dealing with the history of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, a
writer must inevitably find himself at times dealing with the same subjects as
the late Professor Freeman. Without in any way disparaging the genius of that
eminent man, one may deem it a duty to correct the errors into which he fell,
and conscientiously to combat, as an obstinate and mischievous superstition,
the conviction of his pre-eminent accuracy and authority on matters of fact. It
would be far pleasanter to dwell only on his merits; but when one finds that,
in spite of the proofs I have been producing for years, Mr Herbert Fisher,
representing the Oxford school of history, can still declare Mr Freeman to
have reached 'the highest standard of scholarly exactitude',6 it is evident that
the works of the Regius Professor are still surrounded by a false glamour, and
that one must further expose his grave liability to error. I cannot suppose that
any competent scholar who may carefully peruse this work will in future
venture to deny that, in spite of his many and his splendid gifts, Mr Freeman
was as liable as any of us to error, or that however laudable his intentions, he
was capable of precisely the same inaccuracy and occasionally of the same
confusion as he denounced so bitterly in others.

It is, indeed, my contention, as I have already explained,7 that to these
denunciations of the errors of others is largely due the conviction of Mr
Freeman's supreme accuracy. The question raised may seem to affect the
whole method of history, for if, as has been said, it is the argument of the
scientific historian that we ought to prefer accuracy of fact to charm of
presentment and to literary style, the proof that his method fails to save him
from erring like any 'literary' historian strikes at the root of his whole
contention.

Yet it is not the scientific method, but its prophet himself that was at fault.

Although I am here only concerned with inaccuracy in matters of fact, I
would guard myself against the retort that, at least, Mr Freeman's errors are
of little consequence as compared with that obliquity of vision which led Mr

Froude, at all hazards, to vindicate Henry the Eighth. Without insisting on an
absolute parallel, I trace a resemblance even here. Just as his bias against the
Roman church led Mr Froude to vindicate Henry in order to justify the
breach with Rome, so Mr Freeman's passion for democracy made him an
advocate on behalf of Harold, as 'one whose claim was not drawn only from
the winding-sheet of his fathers'. I have elsewhere maintained, as to Harold's
election 'by the free choice of a free people', that Mr Freeman's undoubted
perversion of the case at this 'the central point' of his history, gravely impairs
his narrative of the Conquest, because its success, and even its undertaking,
can actually be traced to that election.8 Unless we realize its disastrous effect
on the situation both at home and abroad, we cannot rightly understand the
triumph of the Duke's enterprise.

It had been my hope, in the present work, to have avoided acute controversy,
but the attitude adopted, unfortunately, by the late Professor's champions has
rendered that course impossible. One can but rejoice that his accuracy should
find strenuous defenders, as it removes the reluctance one would otherwise
feel in continuing to criticize it now. A case is doubly proved when proved in
the teeth of opposition. But one expects that opposition to be fair, and the line
my opponents have taken throughout cannot, by any stretch of courtesy, be so
described. My difficulty, indeed, in dealing with their arguments on the Battle
of Hastings, is that they do not affect or even touch my case. In spite of their
persistent efforts to obscure a plain issue, there is not, and there cannot be,
any 'controversy' as to Mr Freeman and the 'palisade'. For, while fully
recognizing that the onus probandi lay on those who assert its existence, he
failed, on his own showing, to produce any proof of it whatever.9 Mr Archer
has ended,10 as he began,11 by deliberately ignoring Mr Freeman's words,12
on which my case avowedly rests, and without suppressing which he could
not even enter the field. This, indeed, I have explained so often, that I need
not again have disposed of his arguments had not Mr Gardiner, in the
exercise of his editorial discretion, allowed him to make certain statements,13
and refused me the right of exposing them. A typical example will be found
on p. 273.14

It is not only demonstrable error that justifies critical treatment; no less
dangerous, if not more so, is that subtle commixture of guess-work and fact,
which leaves us in doubt as to what is proved and what is merely hypothesis.

In his lecture on 'The Nature of Historical Evidence', the late Professor
himself well brought out the point:

Many people seem to think that a position is proved if it can
not be disproved.... Very few see with Sir George Lewis—
though Sir George Lewis perhaps carried his own doctrine a
little too far—that in a great many cases we ought to be
satisfied with a negative result, that we must often put up with
knowing that a thing did not happen in a particular way, or
did not happen at all, without being furnished with any
counter-statement to put in the place of that which we
reject.15

The question is whether a statement can be proved, not whether it can be
disproved. Cases in point will be found on pp. 291, 298, 331-3.

It may, in view of certain comments, be desirable, perhaps, to explain that the
study on the origin of knight-service appeared in Mr Freeman's lifetime,16
and that my open criticism of his work began so far back as 1882. It will be
seen, therefore, that I challenged its accuracy when he was himself able to
reply.

To those who may hold that in these studies excessive attention is bestowed
on Anglo-Norman genealogy, I commend the words, not of a genealogist, but
of the historian Kemble:

It is indispensable to a clear view of the constitutional law
and governmental institutions of this country, that we should
not lose sight of the distribution of landed estates among the
great families, and that the rise and fall of these houses should
be carefully traced and steadily borne in mind....

Amidst all the tumult and confusions of civil and foreign
wars; throughout religious and political revolutions; from the
days of Arminius to those of Harald; from the days of Harald
to our own; the successions of the landowners and the
relations arising out of these successions, are the running
comment upon the events in our national history: they are at

once the causes and the criteria of facts, and upon them has
depended the development and settlement of principles, in
laws which still survive, in institutions which we cling to with
reverence, in feelings which make up the complex of our
national character.17

The paper on 'Walter Tirel and his wife' may serve to show that in this
department there is still needed much labour before we can hope for a perfect
record of the great houses of the Conquest.

I have to thank Mr Murray for his kind permission to make use of two of the
articles I have contributed to the Quarterly Review.. Some of the studies have
previously appeared in the English Historical Review, and these are now
republished with Messrs Longmans' consent. Lastly, I would take the
opportunity afforded by this preface of acknowledging the encouragement
my researches have derived from the approval not only of our supreme
authority—I mean the Bishop of Oxford—but also of that eminent scholar,
Dr Liebermann, whose name one is proud to associate with a work on
mediaeval history.
J. H. ROUND

[Note: I have not thought it needful to include in the index names of
persons or places only introduced incidentally in illustration of
arguments. The prefix 'Fitz', as in Geoffrey de Mandeville, has been
retained as a useful convention, whatever the actual name may have
been.]

1 Table chronologique des chartes et diplômes imprimés concernant l'histoire de la Belgique.
Par Alphonse Wauters, vol. i, p. xxxi.

2 See pp. 198, 208, 404-5.

3 See p. 430.

4 Prof Maitland informs me that since the appearance of his Select Pleas in Manorial Courts,
he has discovered the earlier occurrence of the word 'leet' (see p. 90).

5 See Domesday Studies.

6 Fortnightly Review, December 1894, pp. 804-5.

7 Quarterly Review., July 1892.

8 See Quarterly Review. as above.

9 See pp. 263-9.

10 English Historical Review, July 1894.

11 Contemporary Review, March 1893, pp. 335-55.

12 Norman Conquest (2nd Ed.), iii, 763-4.

13 English Historical Review, as above.

14 I have, therefore, been obliged to refer in some detail to these statements, while for those I
have already disposed of I have given the references to the Q.R. and E.H.R.

15 Methods of Historical Study, p. 141.

16 English Historical Review, July 1891-January 1892.

17 The Names, Surnames, and Nicknames of the Anglo-Saxons. Read at Winchester,
September 11, 1845.

CONTENTS

page
PREFACE 9

PART I. TERRITORIAL STUDIES
DOMESDAY BOOK 17
Nature of the Inquisitio Com. Cant.,
19—Criticism of the Domesday text,
26—'Soca' and 'Theinland', 35—The
Domesday 'caruca', 40—The
Domesday hide, 41—The five-hide
unit, 47—The six-carucate unit, 66
—The Leicestershire 'hida', 76—The
Lancashire 'hida', 79—The Yorkshire
unit, 79—General conclusions, 82—
The East Anglian 'Leet', 88—The
words Solinum and Solanda, 91—
The 'Firma unius noctis', 96—'Wara',
100—The Domesday 'juratores', 102
—The Inquisitio Eliensis, 106—The
Ely Return, 114—First mention of
Domesday Book, 120
THE NORTHAMPTONSHIRE
GELD-ROLL 124
THE KNIGHTS OF
PETERBOROUGH 131

THE WORCESTERSHIRE
SURVEY (Hen. I) 140
THE LINDSEY SURVEY (1115-18) 149
THE LEICESTERSHIRE SURVEY
(1124-29) 160
THE NORTHAMPTONSHIRE
SURVEY (Hen. I-Hen. II) 175
THE INTRODUCTION OF
KNIGHT SERVICE INTO
ENGLAND 182
The cartae of 1166, 189—The
'servitium debitum', 197—Scutage,
aid, and 'donum', 209—The total
number of knights due, 228—The
normal knight's fee, 231—The early
evidence, 232—The Worcester
Relief, 241

PART II. HISTORICAL STUDIES
NORMANS UNDER EDWARD
THE CONFESSOR 247
MR FREEMAN AND THE
BATTLE OF HASTINGS 258
The name of 'Senlac', 259—The
palisade, 264—Mr Freeman's
authorities for it, 265—My argument
against it, 269—The shield-wall, 273
—The disposition of the English,
277—The Norman advance, 284—
The fosse disaster, 288—The great
feigned flight, 292—The relief of
Arques, 294—Summary, 297—
Conclusion, 302
MASTER WACE 306
Wace's meaning, 306—Wace's
authority, 309—Wace and his

sources, 313
NOTE ON THE PSEUDO-INGULF 321
REGENBALD, PRIEST AND
CHANCELLOR 323
THE CONQUEROR AT EXETER 330
THE ALLEGED DESTRUCTION
OF LEICESTER (1068) 347
ELY AND HER DESPOILERS
(1072-75) 349
THE LORDS OF ARDRES 351
EARLY IRISH TRADE WITH
CHESTER AND ROUEN 353
WALTER TIREL AND HIS WIFE 355
WALDRIC, WARRIOR AND
CHANCELLOR 364
A CHARTER OF HENRY I (1123) 366
THE ORIGIN OF THE NEVILLES 370
THE ALLEGED INVASION OF
ENGLAND IN 1147 373
THE ALLEGED DEBATE ON
DANEGELD (1163) 377
A GLIMPSE OF THE YOUNG
KING'S COURT (1170) 381
THE FIRST KNOWN FINE (1175) 385
THE MONTMORENCY
IMPOSTURE 392
THE OXFORD DEBATE ON
FOREIGN SERVICE (1197) 398
RICHARD THE FIRST'S CHANGE
OF SEAL (1198) 406
COMMUNAL HOUSE
DEMOLITION 416
THE CINQUE PORTS CHARTERS 424
ADDENDA 430

INDEX 434

PART I

TERRITORIAL STUDIES

DOMESDAY BOOK
The true key to the Domesday Survey, and to the system of land assessment it
records, is found in the Inquisitio Comitatus Cantabrigiensis. Although the
document so styled is one of cardinal importance, it has, from accident, been
known to few, and has consequently never succeeded in obtaining the
attention and scientific treatment it deserved. The merit of its identification
belongs to Mr Philip Carteret Webb, who published in 1756 a paper
originally read before the Society of Antiquaries, entitled, A Short Account of
Danegeld, with some further particulars relating to William the Conqueror's
Survey. It is difficult to speak too highly of this production, remembering the
date at which it was composed. Many years were yet to elapse before the
printing of Domesday was even begun, and historical evidences were largely
inaccessible as compared with the condition of things today. Yet the ability
shown by Mr Webb in this careful and conscientious piece of work is well
seen in his interesting discovery, which he announced in these words:

In searching for the Liber Eliensis, I have had the good
fortune to discover in the Cotton Library a MS. copy of the
Inquisition of the jury, containing their survey for most of the
hundreds in Cambridgeshire. This MS. is written on vellum in
double columns and on both sides of the page. It is bound up

with the Liber Eliensis, and begins at p. 76a and ends at p.
113. It is written in a very fair but ancient character, not
coeval with the Survey, but of about the time of Henry II. It
was given by Mr Arthur Agard to Sir Robert Cotton, and is
marked Tiberius A. VI 4. Your lordship and the Society will
be of opinion that this is a discovery of importance, and what
had escaped the observation of Sir H. Spelman, Mr Selden,
and other antiquarians. A part of this valuable morsel of
antiquity is already transcribed, and in a few weeks I hope to
be able to communicate the whole of it to the Society (p. 26).

Mr Webb's discovery was known to Kelham, and duly referred to by him in
his Domesday Book Illustrated (1788). It was also known to Sir Francis
Palgrave, strong in his acquaintance with manuscript authorities, who alluded
(1832) to the fact that 'fragments of the original inquisitions have been
preserved',1 and described the MS. Tib. A. VI, of which 'the first portion
consists of the Inquisitio Eliensis, extending, as above mentioned, into five
counties; it is followed by the inedited Inquisitio', etc.2 It is, however,
undoubtedly ignored in Ellis's Introduction to Domesday Book (1833), and
'even the indefatigable Sir Thomas Duffus Hardy', writes Mr Birch,3 'has
omitted all notice of this manuscript in his Descriptive Catalogue of
Manuscripts relating to the History of Great Britain and Ireland, vol. ii.
(1865)'. This, however, is not strictly the case, for in his notice of the
Domesday MSS. he observes in a footnoteid:

The Cottonian MS. [Tib. A. VI] has also a second and unique
portion of this survey, which was not printed in the edition
published by the Record Commission in 1816. It commences
'in Grantebriggesira, in Staplehouhund', and ends imperfectly
'et vicecomiti regis v. auras'.

These words prove that Sir Thomas had inspected the MS., which duly
begins and ends with the words here given.

It is certain, however, that Mr Freeman, most ardent of Domesday students,
knew nothing of this precious evidence, and remained therefore virtually
unacquainted with the modus operandi of the Great Survey. The pages, we
shall find, of the Inquisitio afford information that no one would have

welcomed more eagerly than himself. Perhaps, therefore, it is not surprising
that Mr N. E. S. A. Hamilton, when editing this document for the Royal
Society of Literature (1876), should have supposed that it had been
overlooked till then, or that he was 'the first to bring its importance to light'
(p. vi). It is, however, much to be regretted that Mr De Gray Birch should
have strenuously insisted that Webb (whose paper he actually names) and
Kelham 'appear to have been strangely ignorant of the true and important
nature of this manuscript',4 and should have repeated this assertion5 after I
had shown at the Domesday Commemoration (1886) that the honour of the
discovery really belonged to Mr P. C. Webb. One may claim that Webb
should have his due, while gladly expressing gratitude to Mr Hamilton for his
noble edition of the Inquisitio, which has conferred on Domesday students an
inestimable boon.6

The printing of the document in record type, the collation throughout with
Domesday Book, and the appending of the Inquisitio Eliensis, edited from
three different texts, represent an extraordinary amount of minute and
wearisome labour. The result is a volume as helpful as it is indispensable to
the scholar.

I propose in this paper to take up anew the subject, at the point where Mr
Hamilton has left it, to submit the text to scientific criticism, to assign it its
weight in the scale of authority, and to explain its glossarial and its
illustrative value for the construction and the contents of Domesday Book.

I. NATURE OF THE 'INQ. COM. CANT.'

Exact definition is needful at the outset in dealing with this document. The
Inquisitio Comitatus Cantabrigiensi, which is entered on fos. 76-113 of Tib.
A. VI, must be carefully distinguished from the Inquisitio Eliensis on fos. 38-
68. Mr Hamilton doubted whether any one before him 'had distinguished
between' the two, but this, we have seen, was a mistake. The distinction
however is all-important, the two documents differing altogether in character.
One would not think it necessary to distinguish them also from the so-called
Liber Eliensis (which is not a survey at all) had not Mr Eyton inadvertently
stated that our document has been printed under the title of Liber Eliensis.7

The Inquisitio Comitatus Cantabrigiensi (hereafter styled 'the I.C.C.') deals
with the county of Cambridge alone, but, in that county, with the lands of all
holders. The Inquisitio Eliensis (which I propose to style 'the I.E.') deals with
several counties, but, in these counties, with the lands of the abbey alone. The
latter was duly printed, with Domesday Book, by the Record Commission;
the former remained in manuscript till printed by Mr Hamilton.

Mr Hamilton describes his record at the outset as 'the Original Return made
by the Juratores of the county of Cambridge in obedience to the Conqueror's
mandate, from which the Exchequer Domesday for that county was
afterwards compiled by the King's secretaries', and as 'the original source
from which the Exchequer Domesday for that county was derived'. Mr Birch
here again repeats the words, insisting 'that we have in this very precious
Cottonian MS. the original source from which the Exchequer Domesday of
Cambridgeshire was compiled'.8

Such a description is most unfortunate being not only inaccurate but
misleading. All that we are entitled to predicate of the document is that it is
apparently a copy of the original returns from which Domesday Book was
compiled. For 'the original source' of both we must look to the now missing
returns of the jurors, the primary authority from which Domesday Book and
the Inquisitio Com. Cant. are independently derived. This distinction is all-
important, reducing, as it does, the Inquisitio from the rank of an 'original' to
that of a secondary authority on the same level with Domesday Book.9 Mr
Hamilton, like Mr Webb before him, assigned the handwriting of the
Inquisitio to about the close of the twelfth century. The copy of the returns
which it contains, therefore, was made about a century later than the returns
themselves.

The problem then that we have to solve is this: 'Is the I.C.C. an actual
transcript of these original returns, and if so, is it faithful?' I will not, like Mr
Hamilton, assume an affirmative, but will attempt an impartial inquiry.

The two paths which we must follow in turn to arrive at a just conclusion are
(1) the construction of the I.C.C., (2) collation with the Inq. Eliensis. For I
hope to show that the latter record must have been derived from the same
source as the Inq. Com. Cant.

Following the first of these paths, we note at once that while Domesday Book
arranges the Manors according to fiefs, the Inq. Com. Cant., on the contrary,
arranges them by hundreds and townships. Its system is regular and simple.
For every hundred it first enumerates the principal jurors who made the
return, and then gives the return itself, arranged according to townships
(villæ). These townships are thus the units of which the Manors they contain
are merely the component fractions. This is precisely what we should expect
to find in the original returns, but it only creates a presumption; it does not
afford a proof. For instance, it might be reasonably urged that these copies
may have omitted certain items in the returns, just as Domesday Book
omitted others.

To reply to this objection, we must turn to the second path; that is to say, we
must collate the Inquisitio Eliensis with the Inq. Com. Cant. I shall prove
below that the latter cannot have been taken from the former, which only
covers a portion of its field, and that, on the other hand, the former cannot
have been taken from the latter, because the Inquisitio Eliensis is accurate in
places where the Inq. Com. Cant. is in error. Consequently they must both
have been derived independently from some third document. This being so, if
we should find that their versions agree closely, we may fairly infer that each
is intended to be a faithful reproduction of the above 'third document'. In
other words, if neither version omits items which are given in the other, we
are entitled to assume that the copy is in each case exhaustive, for two scribes
working independently are not likely to have systematically omitted the same
items from the document before them.

What then was the 'third document' from which they both copied? Obviously
it was either the original returns of the Domesday jurors, or a copy
(exhaustive or not) of these returns. Now we cannot suppose that two scribes,
working, as I have said, independently, would both have worked, not from
the original returns themselves, but from a copy, and that the same copy of
these returns—a copy, moreover, of the existence of which we have no
evidence whatever. Moreover, in this hypothetical copy, there would, we may
safely assert, have been some clerical errors. These would have duly re-
appeared in both the Inquisitiones, and collation with Domesday Book would
enable us to detect them. Yet in no single instance, though each of them
contains errors, have I found a clerical error common to both. We are thus

driven to the conclusion that in both these Inquisitiones we have copies of the
actual returns made by the Domesday jurors.

One of the postulates in the above argument is that the Inq. Com. Cant. and
the Inq. Eliensis 'agree closely' in their versions. Here is an instance in
illustration:10

I.C.C. I.E.

Meldeburna pro x. Meldeburne pro x. hidis
sol[idis] se defendebat se defendebat in tempore
T.R.E. et modo pro viii. R. ÆD. et modo pro viii.
Et de his x. hidis tenet Et de his x. hun[dredis]
predictus abbas ii. hidas tenet abbas de eli ii.
et Iam. virgam. v. carrucis hidas et i. v[irgam]. v.
est ibi terra. Una carruca carucis ibi est terra. I.
et dimidia, et una hida et caruca et dimidia, et i.
una virga in dominio, et hida et dimidia, in
dimidia carruca potest dominio, et dimidia
fieri. iii. Carucæ villanis. caruca potest fieri. iii.
vi. villani, ix. bordarii, carucæ hominibus. vi.
iii. cotarii, dimidium villani, ix. bordarii, iii.
molendinum de iii. cotarii. Pratum v. carucis.
solidis, et viii. denariis. i. molendinum de ii.
Pratum v. carrucis. solidis et viii. denariis.
Pastura ad pecora villæ, Pastura ad pecora villæ.
ccc. oves iii. minus, oves ccc., iiies. minus, et
xxxiiii. porci. Inter totum xxxiiii. porci. Inter totum
valet c. sol., et quando valet v. lib. Quando
recepit totidem. T.R.E. recepit v. lib. T.R.E. vi.
vi. lib. Hæc terra jacet et lib. Hæc terra jacet et
jacuit in ecclesia sancte jacuit in ecclesia sancte
Ædel. de eli in dominio. Ædel' ely in dominio.

Et de his x. hidis tenet In eadem villa habet
Wido de Reb' curt de Guido de Raimbecurt de
rege, &ca., &ca. rege, &ca., &ca.

These extracts are typical and instructive. They leave, in the first place, no
doubt upon the mind that both are versions of the same original. This, which
proves my postulate, will be shown below to possess a further and important
bearing. But while these versions closely agree, we notice (1) independent
blunders, (2) slight variants in diction. As to blunders, we see that the I.C.C.
has 'sol[idis]' where the I.E. has the correct 'hidis', while, conversely, the I.E.
reads 'hun[dredis]' where the I.C.C. has, rightly, 'hidis'. Again the I.C.C. allots

to demesne an assessment of a hide and a virgate, but I.E. a hide and a half
(i.e. two virgates). Collation with Domesday Book confirms the former
version. Conversely, the I.C.C. assigns to the mill the value of three shillings
and eightpence, but the I.E. of two shillings and eightpence. Collation with
Domesday Book confirms the latter. Turning now to the variants, we may
express them more clearly thus:

I.C.C. I.E.
T.R.E. = in tempore R. ÆD.
predictus abbas = abbas de eli.
villanis = hominibus.
dimidium molendinum = i. molendinum.
c. sol. = v. lib.
totidem = v. lib.
de his x. hidis tenet = in eadem villa habet.

These prove that verbal accuracy was not aimed at by the transcribers. The
same freedom from its trammels is seen in the transposition of the 'mill' and
'meadow' passages, and, indeed, in the highly abbreviated form of the I.E.
entries (in which a single letter, mostly, does duty for a word), which shows
that the original version must have been either extended in the I.C.C., or
(more probably) abbreviated in the I.E.

We are now in a position to advance to the criticism of the text of the Inq.
Com. Cant., and to inquire how far it can be trusted as a reproduction of the
original returns. In other words, are its contents more or less trustworthy than
those of Domesday Book?

It might, no doubt, be fairly presumed that a simple transcript of the original
returns was less likely to contain error than such a compilation as Domesday
Book, in which their contents were (1) rearranged on a different system, (2)
epitomized and partly omitted, (3) altered in wording. Mr Hamilton, indeed,
who was naturally tempted to make the most of his MS., appears to have
jumped at this conclusion; for he speaks in his preface (p. xii) of its 'superior
exactness', and gives us no hint of omissions or of blunders. There are,
however, plenty of both, as will be seen from the lists below, which do not
profess to be exhaustive.

But we will first examine the instances adduced by Mr Hamilton. Out of ten
examples in proof of its value, five are cases in which 'the want of precision
in Domesday' leaves the identity of the tenant-in-chief 'undefined'. It is
difficult to comment on these statements, because in all five cases the name is
as carefully recorded in Domesday as in the I.C.C. Mr Hamilton's error can
only, it will be found, have arisen from comparing the I.C.C. not with
Domesday Book, but with the extracts therefrom printed in his work, which,
being torn from their place, do not, of course, contain the tenant's full name,
which in Domesday itself is given at the head of the list from which they are
taken. Moreover, as it happens, this test demonstrates not the inferiority, but
(in one instance at least) the superiority of Domesday, the I.C.C. (fo. 97, col.
2) reading 'Hanc terram tenuit comes alanus' [sic], where Domesday has
(rightly) 'Hanc terram tenuit Algar comes'. The former must have wrongly
extended the abbreviated original entry.11

Another of Mr Hamilton's examples is this:

'Hæc terra fuit et est de dominio æcclesiæ' (Domesday) is
abbreviated from a long account of the holdings of
Harduuinus de Scalariis and Turcus homo abbatis de
Rameseio in the Cotton MS.

But, on referring to the passage in question, we find that the Domesday
passage: 'Hæc terra fuit et est de dominio æcclesiæ' has nothing to do with
that 'long account', but corresponds to the simple formula in the I.C.C., 'Hanc
terram tenuerunt monache de cet'ero T.R.E. et modo tenent'. The example
which follows it is this:

At pp. 38, 39 we see a curious alteration in the value of the
land, which had risen from xv. lib. 'quando recepit' and T.R.E.
to xvii. lib. at the time the return was made, and dropped
again to xvi. lib. in the Domesday Survey.

This strange comment implies the supposition that the I.C.C. records an
earlier survey than Domesday Book, whereas, of course, they are derived
from the same returns, so that the discrepancy of xvi. and xvii. is merely a
clerical error. One more instance, the 'curious reading' Harlestone in the
I.C.C., is shown below to be merely an error in that MS. Such are eight of the

examples adduced by Mr Hamilton. The remaining two merely illustrate not
the superior accuracy, but the greater elaboration of the I.C.C. It has been
absolutely necessary to dispose of these examples, in order to show that a
critical estimate of the value of the I.C.C. has yet to be made.

Taking the omissions in the MS. first, we find some really bad ones. On fo.
79a (2), collation with Domesday gives this result:

I.C.C. (p. 12)12 D.B. (I. 196a)

II. hidas et dimidiam et x. acras Tenuerunt
tenuerunt. [................................ ii. hidas et
.................................................. dimidiam et
...................................................]. x. acras.
Non potuerunt recedere sine Nec isti
licentia. potuerunt
recedere
absque
licentia
abbatis. Et
xix.
sochemanni,
homines
regis E.,
tenuerunt ii.
hidas. Non
potuerunt
recedere
absque
licentia.

A similar 'run on' omission is found on fo. 109a (1):

D.B. (I. 200a,
I.C.C. (p. 79)
193a)

Tenet Radulfus de bans de Tenet
[Widone de] rembercurt Radulfus
terciam partem unius virge. I. de
bovi ibi est terra, et est Widone
bos [.................................... iiiciam.
................................................. partem i.
................................................ virgatæ
................................................. [Terra est
..................................] i. bovi], et
Valet et valuit semper xii. ibi est
den.13 bos. Valet
et valuit
ii. sol., et
vendere
potuit, et
iiiitam.
partem
unius
Avere
vicecomiti
invenit.

In
Oreuuelle
tenet
eadem
æcclesia
iiiitam.
partem
unius
virgatæ.
Terra est
dimidio

bovi et
valet xii.
den.

Another instance of 'running on' occurs on fo. 105a (1), where 'xviii. cotarii'
(p. 67) is proved by Domesday to stand for 'xviii. [bordarii x.] cotarii'. Again
on fo. 79b (2) we have this:

I.C.C. (p. 14) D.B. (I. 195b 1)

Eadiua unam Tenuit
hidam habuit Eddeua i.
et unam hidam et i.
virgam virgatam et
[...................... Wluui homo
....] Socham ejus i. hidam
huius habuit et i.
ædiua virgatam.
T.R.E.14 Socam ejus
habuit
Eddeua.

So, too, on fo. 100b(1):

I.C.C. (p. 52) D.B. (I. 190a)

XI. carruce XV. villani et
villanis xv. xv. bordarii
[villani, xv. cum xi.
bordarii, xi. carucis. Ibi
servi. Unum xi. servi, et i.
mol' de xvi. molinus de
denariis, et xvi. denariis
alii duo mol' et alii duo

de xxxii. molini xxxii.
denariis. denariis.
Pratum] xvi. Pratum xvi.
carrucis. carucis.

The importance of such an omission as this lies in the proof of unintelligent
clerkship and want of revision which so unmeaning an entry as 'xv. xvi.
carrucis' supplies.

Omissions of another character are not infrequent. On fo. 95b (1) an entire
holding of a virgate (held by a sokeman of Earl Alan) is omitted (p. 34).
Another sokeman of Earl Alan (p. 32) has his holding (¼ virgate) omitted on
the same folio (95a, 1), so is an entire holding of Hardwin's (p. 36) on fo. 96a
(2). A demesne plough ('i. caruca') of Hugh de Port (p. 8) is omitted (78a, 1),
and so are the ploughs ('et iiii. villanis') of Aubrey's villeins (p. 9) a few lines
lower down. On fo. 90a (1) the words 'ibi est terra' are wanting (p. 15),15 and
so are 'non potuit' on fo. 100 (A) 1.16 The word 'recedere' is left out on fo.
103b (2),17 and 'soca' just before (103 (B) 1).18 'Odo' is similarly wanting on
fo. 90a (1).19 The note also on the Abbot of Ely's sokeman at Lollesworth (p.
95), is wholly omitted (fo. 113, B, 2), though found both in Domesday Book
and in the Inquisitio Eliensis.20

Turning now to the clerical blunders, we find an abundant crop. We may
express them conveniently in tabular form:

Folio Page
76 (a) 2. 'Auenam lvii. nummos,' for 'Aueram (ve)l viii. denarios' 2
(D.B.)
76 (b) 1. 'Hominis' for 'ho(mo)' 3
77 (a) 2. 'In dominio et iii. villani', for 'una caruca in dominio et 7
iii. villanis'
Ibid. 'Mille de anguillis dimidium de piscina', for 'i. millen' et 7
dimidium anguill'' (D.B.)
78 (b) 2. 'iiii. in dominio carucæ et iiii. hidæ in dominio', for 'iiii. 11
carucæ et iiii. hidæ in dominio'

79 (a) 1. 'cuius honor erat', for 'cuius ho(mo) erat' 12
79 (b) 2. 'iiii. bobus', for 'iiii. bord(arii)' 14
91 (b) 2. 'valent iii.', for 'valent iii. den.' 21
92 (b) 2. 'xliii. car(ucis) ibi e(st) terra', for 'xl. acras terræ' 25
95 (a) 2. 'has v. h(idas) tenet', for 'de his v. h(idis) tenet' 33
95 (b) 1. 'et pro iiii. virgis', for 'et pro iii. virgis' 34
95 (b) 2. 'unam virgam minus', for 'dimi' virg' minus' (D.B.) 35
96 (b) 1. 'dimidiam virgam', for 'i. virg'' (D.B.) 38
97 (b) 1. 'Clintona', for 'Iclintona' 41
97 (b) 2. 'unam hidam', for 'dimidiam hidam' (D.B.) 42
100 (a) 1. 'Terra est vi. carucis', for 'Terra est v. carucis'21 50
100 (a) 2. 'ii. h(idas) et dimidiam virgam', for 'ii. hidas et i. virgam 50
et dimidiam'22 (D.B.)
100 (b) 2. 'vii. sochemanni', for 'iii. soch[emanni]'23 52
101 (a) 2. 'homities', for 'homines' 54
101 (b) 2. 'tenet pic' vicecomes quendam ortum de rege ii. hide', for 55
'tenet pic' vicecomes de rege ii. hidas'24
102 (a) 1. 'ii. boves', for 'ii. bord(arii)' 56
104 (b) 1. 'iiii. hidas et i. virgam', for 'iii. hidas et i. virgam' (D.B.) 65
105 (b) 2. bis 'Rahamnes', for 'Kahannes' 60
106 (a) 1. 'pro vi. hidis' (bis), for 'pro vii. hidis' 70
109 (b) 2. 'Fulcuinus tenet de comite Alano iii. cottarios', for 82
'Fulcuinus tenet de comite Alano. iii. cottarii'
110 (a) 1. 'ely tenuit ii. h(idas)', for 'ely tenuit i. h(idam)' (I.E.) 83
110 (b) 1. 'viiii. h(idis)', for 'viii. h(idis)' 84
111 (a) 2. 'liii. carrucis est ibi terra', for 'iiii. car' est ibi terra' 87

Besides these, Ralf 'de bans' is often entered as Ralf 'de scannis'. Again, we
find such blunders as this:

I.C.C. D.B.

Hugo de portu Ipse Hugo tenet
tenet de feudo episcopi
sneileuuelle. Pro baiocensis
v. hidis se snellewelle. Pro
defendebat T.R.E. v. hidis se
et modo facit de defend[ebat]
feudo episcopi semper.
baiocensis (p. 3).
Tenuit Turbern i.
Tenuit Turbertus hidam de abbate.
i. hidam sub Non poterat
abbate de eli. Et separare ab
in morte ita quod æcclesia extra
non potuit dare firmam
neque separare ab monachorum
ecclesia extra T.R.E. nec in die
dominicam mortis ejus.
firmam
monachorum
T.R.E. (p. 63). Habuerunt ii.
hidas et dimidiam
Abuerunt de soca vir[gatam] de
S. Ædel' ii. hidas soca S.
et dimidiam Ædeldride de Ely.
virgam de ely
T.R.E. (p. 65).

In all these three cases the italicized words are misplaced, and in all three the
explanation is the same, the scribe having first omitted them, and then
inserted them later out of place. Having now criticized the text of the I.C.C.,
and shown that it presents no small traces of unintelligent clerkship, if not of
actual ignorance of the terms and formulæ of Domesday, I turn to the text of
Domesday Book, to test it by comparison with that of the I.C.C.

II. CRITICISM OF THE DOMESDAY TEXT

Among the omissions are, on i, 195 (b) 1, 'Item et reddebat viii. den. vel
aueram si rex in vicecomitatu venit' (p. 5). At Kirtling (p. 11), 'et vta. caruca
potest fieri [in dominio]' is omitted (i. 202 a). So is (p. 25) a potential
demesne plough of John fitz Waleran (i. 201 b). The Countess Judith's
sokemen at Carlton (pp. 20, 21) have their values omitted25 (i. 202, a, 2).
'Habuerunt dimidiam hidam, et,' is omitted (p. 28) in the entry of two
sokemen of Godwine (201, b, 2). On i. 196 (a) 1, 'Terra est i. bovi' is wanting
(p. 79). More important, however, are the omissions of whole entries. These
are by no means difficult to account for, the process of extracting from the
original returns, the various entries relating to each particular fief being one
which was almost certain to result in such omissions.26

Moreover, two entries were occasionally thrown into one, a dangerous plan
for the clerks themselves, and one which may sometimes lead us to think that
an entry is omitted when it is duly to be found under another head. Lastly, the
compilers of Domesday Book had no such invaluable check for their work as
was afforded in the original by entering first the assessment of the whole
township, and then that of each of its component Manors separately. But of
this more below.27 The only wonder is that the omissions are, after all, so
few. Perhaps even of these some may be only apparent. Hardwin's half-hide
in Burwell (p. 6) is wanting; so is Aubrey's half-virgate in Badburgham,
according to Mr Hamilton (p. 36), but the oversight is his. A virgate held in
Trumpington by a burgess of Cambridge (p. 51) would seem to be not
forthcoming, but its position was somewhat anomalous.28 Guy de
Rembercurt held a hide and a virgate in Haslingefield (p. 73), though we
cannot find it in Domesday; and in Witewelle (Outwell) two hides which were
held by Robert, a tenant of Hardwin (p. 81), are similarly omitted, according
to Mr Hamilton but will be found under 'Wateuuelle' (198, b, 2).

There are cases in which the I.C.C. corrects D.B., cases in which D.B.
corrects the I.C.C., and cases in which the I.C.C. corrects itself. There are
also several cases of discrepancy between the two, in which we cannot
positively pronounce which, if either, is right. A singular instance of both
being wrong is found in the case of Soham. The assessment of this township
was actually eleven hides, its four component holdings being severally
assessed at nine and a half hides less six acres, half a hide, one hide, and six
acres. The I.C.C. at first gives the total assessment as eleven hides and a half,
while D.B. erroneously assesses the first of the four holdings at six hides and

forty acres in one place, and nine hides and a half in the other, both figures
being wrong. A most remarkable case of yet another kind is found in Scelford
(Shelford). Here the entry in I.C.C. agrees exactly with the duplicate entries
found in D.B. Yet they both make nonsense.29 But on turning to the Inquisitio
Eliensis we obtain the correct version. As this is a very important and
probably unique instance, the entries are here given in parallel columns:

D.B. i. 198 (a) D.B. i. 198 (a)
Inq. Eliensis. Inq. Com. Cant.
2. 2.

i. hidam et Tenuerunt Tenuerunt Tenuerunt
dim. et vi. vii. [sic] vii. [sic] vii. [sic]
acras quas sochemanni sochemanni sochemanni
tenuerunt i. hidam et i. hidam et i. hidam et
vi. dim. et vi. dim. et vi. dim. et vi.
sochemanni acras de acras de acras de
de socha soca soca soca
abbatis ely, abbatis de abbatis. abbatis de
de quibus ely. Non Non30 ely. Non
non potuerunt potuerunt potuerunt
potuerunt recedere recedere recedere
dare nec sed soca cum terra, cum terra,
recedere remanebat sed soca sed soca
nisi iiics. abbati. remanebat remanebat
virgas æcclesia de æcclesiæ
absque ejus ely. Ely.
licentia. Et
si alias
vendidissent
tres virgas,
predictus
abbas
semper
socham
habuit
T.R.E.

Here the Inquisitio Eliensis version shows us that the estate had two divisions
held by different tenures. Three virgates the sokemen were not free to sell;
the other three they might sell, but if they did, 'predictus abbas semper
socham habuit'.31 The two divisions of the estate are confused in the other
versions. But all three of these correspond so exactly that we are driven to
assign the error to the original returns themselves. In that case the compiler
(or compilers) of the I.E. will have corrected the original return from his own
knowledge of the facts, which knowledge, I shall show, he certainly
possessed.

This brings us to the errors of Domesday. For comparison's sake, I here
tabulate them like those of the I.C.C.:

Folio Page
i. 189 (b) 2. 'mancipium', for 'inuuardum' (I.C.C.) 4
i. 195 (b) 1. 'Terra est ii. carucis et ibi est', for 'Terra est i. carucæ 15
et ibi est'
i. 199 (b) 1. 'xxx. acras', for 'xx. acras' (I.C.C.) 15
i. 196 (a) 2. 'iiii. villani ... habent iii. carucas', for 'iiii. villani ... 21
habent iiii. carucas'
i. 199 (b) 1. 'De hac terra tenet', for 'adhuc in eadem villa tenet' 29
(?)32
i. 198 (a) 1. 'tenet Harduuinus i. virgatam' for 'tenet Hardeuuinus 38
dim. virgatam' (I.C.C.)
i. 194 (b) 1. 'ii. hidas et i. virg. terræ', for 'ii. hidas et una virg. et 64
dimidiam' (I.C.C.)
i. 199 (b) 2. 'xvi. sochemanni', for 'xv sochemanni' 65
i. 198 (b) 1. 'tenet Durand ... i. hidam et i. virg.', for 'tenet Durand 67
i. hidam et dim. virg.'
i. 200 (a) 1. 'In dominio ii. hidæ et dim', for 'In dominio ii. hidæ et 67
dim. virg.'33
i. 200 (b) 2. 'tenet Radulf de Picot iii. virg.', for 'tenet Radulf de 80
Picot i. virg.'
i. 196 (b) 2. 'tenet Robertus vii. hidas et ii. virg. et dim.', for 'tenet 74
Robertus vii. hidas et i. virg. et dim.'
i. 200 (a) 1. 'vii. homines Algari comitis', for 'vi. homines Algari 84
comitis'

Comparing the omissions and errors, as a whole, in these two versions of the
original returns, it may be said that the comparison is in favour of the
Domesday Book text, although, from the process of its compilation, it was far
the most exposed to error. No one who has not analysed and collated such
texts for himself can realize the extreme difficulty of avoiding occasional
error. The abbreviations and the formulæ employed in these surveys are so

many pitfalls for the transcriber, and the use of Roman numerals is almost
fatal to accuracy. The insertion or omission of an 'x' or an 'i' was probably the
cause of half the errors of which the Domesday scribes were guilty.
Remembering that they had, in Mr Eyton's words,34 to perform 'a task, not of
mere manual labour and imitative accuracy, but a task requiring intellect—
intellect, clear, well-balanced, apprehensive, comprehensive, and trained
withal', we can really only wonder that they performed it so well as they did.

Still, the fact remains that on a few pages of Domesday we have been able to
detect a considerable number of inaccuracies and omissions. The sacrosanct
status of the Great Survey is thus gravely modified. I desire to lay stress on
this fact, which is worthy of the labour it has cost to establish. For two
important conclusions follow. Firstly, it is neither safe nor legitimate to make
general inferences from a single entry in Domesday. All conclusions as to the
interpretation of its formulae should be based on data sufficiently numerous
to exclude the influence of error. Secondly, if we find that a rule of
interpretation can be established in an overwhelming majority of the cases
examined, we are justified, conversely, in claiming that the apparent
exceptions may be due to errors in the text.

The first of these conclusions has a special bearing on the theories
propounded by Mr Pell with so much ingenuity and learning.35 I have shown,
in an essay criticizing these theories,36 that the case of Clifton, to which Mr
Pell attached so much importance,37 is nothing, in all probability, but one of
Domesday's blunders, of which I gave, in that essay, other instances. So, too,
in the case of his own Manor of Wilburton, Mr Pell accepted without
question the reading 'six ploughlands', as representing the 'primary return',38
although that reading is only found in the most corrupt of the three versions
of the Inquisitio Eliensis, while the two better versions (B and C texts) agree
with Domesday Book, and with the abbreviated return at the end of the A text
itself (Tib. A. VI fo. 67, b, 1), in giving the ploughlands as seven. Really it is
nothing but waste of time to argue from a reading which is only found in one
out of five MSS., and that one the most corrupt.

This brings me to the existence and the value of duplicate entries in
Domesday. Mr Hamilton describes as 'a curious reading' the words in the
I.C.C., 'sed soca remanebat Harlestone'. Now it so happens that in this case

we have five separate versions of the original entry: one in the I.C.C., one in
the I.E., and three in Domesday Book. Here they are side by side:

I.C.C. I.E. D.B. D.B. D.B.
(p. 46) (p. 106) (I. 200, a, 2) (Ibid., in (I. 191, a, 2)
margin)
Et potuit Potuit Recedere Vendere Potuit
recedere recedere cum terra potuit, recedere
quo voluit cum sua sed soca sine
sed soca terra sua potuit, Abbati licentia
remanebat absque sed soca remansit. ejus,
Harlestone. ejus remansit sed soca
licentia, æcclesiæ. remansit
sed Abbati.
semper
remansit
socha
ejus in
ecclesia
sancte
Ædel' ut
hund
testantur.

The value of such collation as this ought to be self-evident. It is not only that
we thus find four out of five MSS. to be against the reading 'Harlestone'
(which, indeed, to any one familiar with the survey is obviously a clerical
error), but that here and elsewhere we are thus afforded what might almost be
termed a bilingual inscription. We learn, for instance, that the Domesday
scribe deemed it quite immaterial whether he wrote 'recedere cum terra ejus',
or 'vendere' or 'recedere sine licentia'. Consequently, these phrases were all
identical in meaning.39

Considerable light is thrown by the I.C.C. on the origin of these little known
duplicate entries in Domesday. In every instance of their occurrence within
the limits of its province they are due to a conflict of title recorded in the
original return. They appear further to be confined to the estates of two

landowners, Picot, the sheriff, and Hardwin d'Eschalers, the titles of both
being frequently contested by the injured Abbot of Ely. Why the third local
offender, Guy de Raimbercurt, does not similarly appear, it is difficult to say.
He was the smallest offender of the three, and Picot the worst; but it is
Hardwin's name which occurs most frequently in these duplicate entries.40
The principle which guided the Domesday scribes cannot be certainly
decided, for they duplicated entries in the original return which (according to
the I.C.C.) varied greatly in their statements of tenure. Thus, to take the first
three:

I.C.C. D.B.
fo. 79 (b) 1, 'Tenet I. 190 (b) 2,
Harduuinus 'Tenet
descalariis'.41 Harduinus
sub
abbate'.
I. 199 (a) 2,
'Tenet
Harduinus'.
fo. 90 (b) 2, 'Tenet I. 190 (b) 1,
Harduuinus 'Tenet
de abbate'. Harduinus
de Escalers
de abbate'.
I. 199 (a) 2,
'Tenet
Harduinus'.
fo. 92 (a) 2, 'Tenet I. 199 (b) 2,
Harduuinus 'Tenet
de rege'. Harduinus
de abbate'.
I. 199 (a) 2,
'Tenet
Harduinus'.

Here, whether the original return states Hardwin to hold (1) of the abbot, (2)
of the king, or (3) of neither, the scribes, in each of the three cases, enter the
estates (A) under the Abbot's land, as held of the Abbot, (B) under Hardwin's
land, as held in capite. And it is singular that in all these three cases the entry
of the estate under the Abbot's land is the fuller of the two.42

On the whole it would appear that the Domesday scribes did not consistently
carry out a system of duplicate entry, though, on the other hand, these entries
were by no means due to mere clerical inadvertence, but were prompted by a
doubt as to the title, which led to the precaution of entering them under the
names of both the claimants.

But the chief point of interest in these same entries is that they give us, when
we add the versions of the I.C.C. and the I.E., four parallel texts. At some of
the results of their collation we will now glance.

I.C.C. I.E. D.B. D.B.
(fo. 92, b, 2) (p. 107) (I. 190, b, 2) (I. 199, a, 2)
Hanc Hanc Hanc Hanc terram
terram terram terram tenuerunt
tenuerunt tenuerunt tenuerunt iii.
iii. iii. iii. sochemanni.
sochemanni sochemanni sochemanni Vendere non
homines sub homines potuerunt.
abbatis de predicto abbatis de
ely. Non abbate ely. ely. Non
potuerunt Non potuerunt
recedere potuerunt dare nec
absque vendere vendere
licentia terram absque ejus
ejus. suam sine licentia
eius terram
licentia. suam.

I.C.C. I.E. D.B. D.B.
(fo. 79, b, 1) (p. 102) (I. 190, b, 2) (I. 199, a, 2)
iiii. Hanc Hanc terram Hanc
sochemanni terram tenuerunt terram
tenuerunt tenuerunt iiii. tenuerunt
hanc terram iiii. sochemanni, iiii.
T.R.E. Et sochemanni nec sochemanni
non T.R.E. de potuerunt abbatis de
potuerunt abbate ely. recedere ely. Non
recedere Non sine licentia potuerunt
sine potuerunt abbatis. vendere.
licentia recedere
abbatis de vel vendere
ely. sine
licentia
abbatis ely.

These extracts illustrate the use of the terms dare, vendere, recedere, etc.
They are supplemented by those given below:

I.C.C. D.B. I.E.
(76, a, 1) (I. 196, b, 1)
Potuit dare sine Terram suam
licentia domini tamen dare et
sui terram vendere potuit.
suam.

(76, b, 2) (I. 199, a, 2) (p. 101)
Absque eius Sine ejus Potuerunt
licentia dare licentia poterant dare vel
terram suam recedere et vendere
potuerunt, sed terram suam terram
socham eorum dare vel suam.
vendere, sed Saca

habuit soca remansit remansit
archiepiscopus. Archiepiscopo. abbati.

(76, b, 2) (I. 196, b, 1)
Potuit dare cui Potuit absque43
voluit. ejus licentia
recedere.

(77, b, 2) (I. 195, b, 1)
Potuerunt Potuerunt
recedere cum receder sine
terra ad quem licentia eorum.
dominum
voluerunt.

(78, a, 1) (I. 190, b, 1)
Potuerunt Dare et vendere
recedere cum potuerunt.
terra sua absque
licentia domini
sui.

(90, a, 2) (I. 190, b, 2) (p. 102)

Non potuerunt Non potuerunt Non
recedere sine recedere sine potuerunt
licentia abbatis. ejus licentia. recedere
vel
vendere
absque
eius
licentia.

(I. 200, a, 2)
Non potuerunt
vendere sine
ejus licentia.

(I. 200, a, 1) (p. 109)
(105, a, 2)
Potuerunt dare Terras suas Potuerunt
et vendere sine vendere dare vel
soca. potuerunt. Soca vendere
de viii. cui
sochemannis voluerunt,
remansit in sed saca
abbatia de ely. eorum
remansit
eidem
abbati.

(113, b, 1) (201, a, 1) (p. 112)
Potuerunt Terram suam Potuerunt
recedere sine vendere dare preter
soca. potuerunt. Soca licentiam
vero remansit abbatis et
abbati. sine soca.

No one can glance at these passages without perceiving that dare, vendere,
and recedere are all interchangeably used, and that even any two of them

(whether they have the conjunction 'et' or the disjunction 'vel' between them)
are identical with any one. It would be possible to collect almost any number
of instances in point. Further, the insertion or omission of the phrase 'sine' (or
'absque') 'ejus licentia' is immaterial, it being understood where not
expressed. So too with the words 'cui voluit'. In short, like the translators to
whom we owe the Authorized Version, the Domesday scribes appear to have
revelled in the use of synonym and paraphrase.44 Our own conceptions of the
sacredness of a text and of the need for verbal accuracy were evidently
foreign to their minds.

Glancing for a moment at another county, we have in the Survey of
Leicestershire a remarkable instance of a whole fief being entered twice over.
It is that of Robert Hostiarius:

Robertus hostiarius tenet Robertus filus W.
de rege ii. car. terræ in hostiari, tenet de rege in
Howes. Terra est iii. Howes ii. cari terræ. Ibi
carucis. In dominio est i. habet i. car. in dominio et
caruca et iii. servi, et viii. iii. serv[os] et viii. villani
villani cum i. bordario cum i. bordario habentes
habent ii. car.... ii. car....

Idem [Turstinus] tenet de Idem Turstinus tenet de
R. iiij. car. terræ in Roberto in Clachestone
Clachestone. Terra est ii. iiii. car. terræ et
caruca. Has habent ibi iii. Tetbald[us] ii. car. terræ.
sochemanni cum ii. Ibi est in dominio i.
villanis et ii. bordariis. caruca et iii. sochemanni
Ibi viii. acræ prati. Valuit et v. villani et iiii. [sic]
et valet x. solidos. bordarii cum iii. carucis
et i. servo. Ibi xiii. acræ
Tetbald[us] tenet de prati. Valuit et valet
Roberto ii. car. terræ in totum xx. solidos. Has
Clachestone. In dominio terras tenuerunt T.R.E.
est i. caruca cum i. servo Outi et Arnui cum saca et
et iii. villani cum i. soca.
bordario habent i. car. Ibi

vi. acræ prati. Valuit et
valet x. solidos.

Here the last two entries (both relating to Claxton) have been boldly thrown
into one in the second version, which also (though omitting the number of
ploughlands) gives additional information in the name of Robert's father, and
in those of his predecessors T.R.E. This is thus an excellent illustration of the
liberty allowed themselves by the compilers of Domesday.

An instance on a smaller scale is found in the Survey of Cambridgeshire,
where we read on opposite pages:

In Witelesfeld hund'. In In Witelesf' h'd. In
histetone jacet Wara de i. histetune jac' Wara de
hida et dimidia de M. hida et dimidia de
Cestreforde et est in Cestres' man. et est
Exsesse appreciata, hanc appreciata in Exexe.
terram tenuit Algarus Algar comes tenuit (i.
comes (i. 189 b). 190).

The second entry has been deleted as a duplicate, but it serves to show us that
the scribes, even when free from error, were no mere copyists.45

III. 'SOCA' AND 'THEINLAND'

The extracts I have given above establish beyond a doubt the existence
among the 'sochemanni' of two kinds of tenure. We have (1) those who were
free to part with (vendere) and leave (recedere) their land, (2) those who were
not, i.e. who could not do so without the abbot's licence. This distinction is
reproduced in two terms which I will now examine.

In the Inquisitio Eliensis and the documents connected with it there is much
mention of the 'thegnlands' of the Abbey. These lands are specially

distinguished from 'sokeland' (terra de soca). Both, of course, are distinct
from the 'dominium'. Thus in one of the Conqueror's writs we read:

Restituantur ecclesiæ terræ que in dominio suo erant die
obitus Æduardi.... Qui autem tenent theinlandes que procul
dubio debent teneri de ecclesia faciant concordiam cum
abbate quam meliorem poterint,... Hoc quoque de tenentibus
socam et sacam fiat.46

Now this distinction between 'thegnland' and 'sokeland' will be found to fit in
exactly with the difference in tenure we have examined above. Here is an
instance from the 'breve abbatis' in the record of Guy de Raimbercurt's
aggressions:

In melreda ii. hidas et dim. virg.

In meldeburne ii. hidas et dim.47 et dim. virg.

Hoc est iiii. hidas et iii. virg. Ex his sunt i. virg. et dim.
thainlande et iiii. hidas et dim.48 de soca.

On reference to the two Manors in question, there is, at first sight, nothing in
the I.C.C., the I.E., or Domesday to distinguish the 'thegnland' from the
'sokeland'. Of the first holding we read that it had been held T.R.E. by 10
sochemanni 'de soca S. Edelride'; of the second, that it was held by 'viii.
sochemanni ... homines abbatis de Ely'. But closer examination of the I.C.C.
reveals, in the former case, this distinction:

De his ii. hidis et dimidia virga tenuit i. istorum unam virgam
et dimidiam. Non potuit dare nec vendere absque licentia
abbatis. Sed alii novem potuerunt recedere et vendere cui
voluerunt.49

Here then we identify the virgate and a half of 'theinland'—though held by a
sochemannus—and this same distinction of tenure proves to be the key
throughout. Thus, for instance, in the same document 'Herchenger pistor' is
recorded to have seized 'in Hardwic i. hidam thainlande et dim. hidam et vi.
acras de soca' (p. 177). Reference to the I.C.C., D.B., and the I.E. reveals that

the former holding had belonged to 'v. sochemanni homines abbatis de ely',
and that 'isti non potuerunt dare neque vendere alicui extra ecclesiam S.
Edeldride ely'.50 But the latter holding had belonged to a sochemannus, of
whom it is said—'homo abbatis de ely fuit: potuit recedere, sed socam ejus
abbas habuit'.51

This enables us to understand the distinctions found in the summaries
appended to the Cambridgeshire portion of the I.E., and recorded in the Breve
Abbatis. Indeed they confirm the above distinction, for the formula they
apply to holders 'de soca abbatie ely' is: 'Illi qui hanc terram tenuerunt de
soca T.R.E. vendere potuerunt, sed saca et soca et commendatio et servitium
semper remanebat ecclesia de ely.'

These terms are valuable for their definition of rights. Over the holder of land
'de soco' the lord had (1) 'saca et soca', (2) 'commendatio et (3) servitium'. If
the land was thegnland then the Abbot received 'omnem consuetudinem' as
well.52 We will first deal with the latter class, those from whom the Abbot
received 'consuetudo', and then those who held 'de soca'.

For contemporary (indeed, slightly earlier) evidence, we must turn to the Ely
placitum of 1072-75.53 The special value which this placitum possesses is
found in its record of the services due from sochemanni, and even from
freemen. It thus helps to interpret the bald figures of Domesday, to which it is
actually anterior. The first two instances it affords are these:

In breuessan tenet isdem W. terram Elfrici supradicte
consuetudinis. In brucge tenet ipse W. terram etfled ejusdem
modi.

The consuetudo referred to was this:

Ita proprie sunt abbati ut quotienscunque preceperit
prepositus monasterii ire et omnem rei emendationem
persolvere. Et si quid de suo voluerint venundare, a preposito
prius licentiam debent accipere.

The corresponding entries in the I.E. run thus:

'In Brugge una libera femina commend' S. Ædel. de lxxx. ac.
pro manerio.

In Beuresham ten[uit] Ælfricus i. liber homo commed' S.
Ædel.54 lx. acras pro manerio' (p. 165).

Thus we obtain direct evidence of the services due from commended freemen
owing 'consuetudines'. Turning now to those of sochemanni, we have this
important passage:

Willelmus de Warena tenet quadraginta quinque socamans in
predicta felteuuella qui quotiens abbas preceperit in anno
arabunt suam terram, colligent et purgabunt segetes, adducent
et mittent in horrea, portabunt victum monachorum ad
monasterium, et quotiens eorum equos voluerit, et ubicunque
sibi placuerit, totiens habebit, et ubicunque forsfecerint abbas
forsfacturam habebit, et de illis similiter qui in eorum terram
forsfecerint.

Item Willelmus de uuarenna tenet triginta tres socamans,
istius consuetudinis in Nortuuolda.

Item W. tenet quinque socamans istius modi in Muddaforda.

Supradictus Walterus et cum eo Durandus, homines hugonis
de monte forti, tenent xxvi. socamans supradicte
consuetudinis in Maraham.

Collating as before from the I.E. the relative entries, we find they run thus:

Felteuuelle ... Huic manerio adjacebant T.R.E. xxxiiii.
homines cum omni consuetudine, et alii vii. erant liberi
homines,55 qui poterant vendere terras, sed soca et
commendatio remansit S. Ædel. (p. 132).

In felteuuella tenet W. de uuarenna xli. sochemannos ... Super
hos omnes habebat S. Ædel. socam et commendationem et
omnem consuetudinem. Illorum vii. liberi erant cum terris
suis, sed soca et commendatio remanebat S. Ædel. (p. 139).

IIII. sochemanni adjacent [sic] huic manerio [felteuuella]
T.R.E. Et modo habet eos W. de Warenna (p. 138).

Nortuualde ... Huic manerio adjacebant T.R.E. xxx.
sochemanni cum omni consuetudine. Et alii iiii. liberi
homines qui poterant vendere terras, sed saca et commendatio
remanebat S. Ædel. (p. 132).

In Nortuualde S. Ædel. xxxiiii. sochem [annos] ... S. Ædel.
[habuit] socam et commendationem et omnem consuetudinem
de illis xxx. tantum; et iiii. erant liberi homines, socam et
sacam et commendationem [super hos] S. Ædel. habebat56 (p.
139).

Mundeforde ... Huic manerio adjacebant T.R.E. septem
sochemanni cum omni consuetudine (p. 132).

In Mundeforde S. Ædel. vii. sochemannos cum omni
consuetudine (p. 139).

Huic manerio [Mareham] T.R.E. adjacebant viginti vii.
sochemanni cum omni consuetudine, sed postquam Rex W.
advenit, habuit eos hugo de Munfort preter unum (p. 130).

[Terre hugo de Munford.] In mareham xxvi. sochemanni quos
tenet [sic] S. Ædel. T.R.E.57 ... hanc terram receperunt58 pro
escangio, et mensurata est in brevi S. Ædel. (p. 137).

Here then we identify these four cases: Feltwell, with its 41 sochemanni
(more accurately described as 34 s. and 7 liberi homines) attached to one
Manor and four to another—45 in all; Northwold, with its 33 or 34;59
Muddiford with 5 or 7;60 and Marham with its 26.

The three former Manors lay in the Hundred of Grimeshoe, the fourth
northwards, towards the Wash. Just to the south of the three Manors, over the
borders of Suffolk, lay Brandon, where Lisois de Moustiers had usurped the
rights of Ely over six sochemanni.

In Lakincgeheda et in Brandona vi. sochemanni S. Ædel. ita
quod non potuerunt vendere terras liberati liseie antecessori
eudo[nis] dapif[eri] ... Post eum tenuit eos eudo et tenet cum
saca et soca (p. 142).

The record of the placitum, drawn up during the tenure of Lisois, shows us
their limited services: 'Isti solummodo arabant et c'terent [sic] messes
ejusdem loci quotienscunque abbas præceperit.' The difference between these
services and the others we have seen recorded is considerable.

Yet another group of sokemen on Suffolk Manors rendered these services:

Ita proprie sunt abbati ut quotienscunque ipse præceperit in
anno arabunt suam terram, purgabunt et colligent segetes,
portabunt victum monachorum ad monasterium, equos eorum
in suis necessitatibus habebit [abbas], et ubicunque
deliquerint emendationem habebit semper et de omnibus illis
qui in terris eorum deliquerint.

This is practically the same definition as we had for the other group, and
suggests that it was of wide prevalence. A notable contrast is afforded by the
entry: 'In villa que vocatur Blot tenet ipse R. iiii. homines qui tantum debent
servire abbati cum propriis equis in omnibus necessitatibus suis.'

We have now examined the consuetudines due from those 'qui vendere non
potuerunt', and may turn to the rights exercised over the other class.
Excluding 'servitium' (which is usually omitted as subordinate or comprised
in the others), these are: (1) 'commendatio' (2) 'saca et soca'. The distinction
between the two meets us throughout the survey of the eastern counties. A
man might be 'commended' to one lord while another held his soca. Thus we
read of Eadwine, a 'man' of the Abbot of Ely: 'Potuit dare absque eius
licentia, sed socam comes Algarus habuit.'61 That is to say, he was
'commended to the Abbot of Ely', but Earl Ælfgar had the right of 'sac and
soc' over him.62

So too in the case of three 'liberi homines', commended to the Abbot in
Norfolk. He had no right over them, but such as commendation conferred
'non habebat nisi commendationem', while their 'soca' belonged to the King's

Manor of Keninghall.63 Conversely, the Abbot of Ely had the 'soca' of a 'man'
of Earl Waltheof,64 and a 'man' of John, Waleran's nephew.65 'Commendatio',
of course, took precedence as a right. Thus we read of the above three 'liberi
homines'—'Hos liberos homines tenet [tenuit] Ratfridus, postea W. de
Scodies, et abbas saisivit eos propter commendationem suam' (p. 133).

In the above extracts we saw 'liberi homines qui vendere poterant'
distinguished from 'Sochemanni', who could not sell. But we also saw that
the two classes were not always carefully distinguished. We find, moreover,
that the 'liberi homines' were themselves, sometimes, 'not free to sell'. Thus
'tenuit anant unus liber homo sub S. Ædel. T.R.E. pro manerio ii. carucatas
terræ sed non potuit vendere' (p. 142). Some light may be thrown on this by
the case of the estate held by Godmund, an abbot's brother:

Totam terram quam tenebat Gudmundus in dominio, id est
Nectuna, sic tenebat T.R.E. de S. Ædel. quod nullo modo
poterat vendere, nec dare; sed post mortem suam debebat
manerium redire in dominio ecclesiæ; quia tali pacto tenuit
Gudmundus de Abbate (p. 144).

With this we may compare these entries:

In Cloptuna ... Ædmundus commendatus S. Ædel. unam
carucatam ... quam non potuit vendere nec dare (p. 150).

In Brandestuna Ædmundus presbyter terram quam accepit
cum femina sua dedit S. Ædel. concedente femina T.R.E. ea
conventione quod non posset eam dare nec vendere. Similiter
de Clopetona' (p. 152).

In these cases the holder had only a life interest. Exactly parallel with the
second is the case of 'Eadward', citizen of London, who gave lands to St.
Paul's, reserving a life interest for himself and his wife—'et mortua illa
Sanctus Paulus hereditare debuit'.66

The above commendation of Edmund the priest ought to be compared with
that of 'unus liber homo S. Ædel. commendatus ita quod non poterat vendere
terram suam sine licentia abbatis', and of 'i. liber homo S. Ædel.

Commendatus ita quod non poterat vendere terram suam extra ecclesiam (sed
sacam et socam habuit stigandus in hersham)'.67 Thus both those who were
free to sell and those who were not, might belong to the class of 'liberi
homines'. The essential distinction was one, not of status, but of tenure.

IV. THE DOMESDAY CARUCA

Yet more definite and striking, however, is the information on the Domesday
caruca afforded by collating D.B. with the I.C.C. I referred at the Domesday
Commemoration (1886) to the problem raised by the caruca,68 and recorded
my belief that in Domesday the word must always mean a plough team of
eight oxen. The eight oxen, as Mr Seebohm has shown, are the key to the
whole system of the carucate and the bovate. In Domesday, as I argued, the
formula employed involves of necessity the conclusion that the caruca was a
fixed quantity. Such entries, moreover, as 'terra i. bovi', 'terra ad iii. boves',
etc., can only be explained on the hypothesis that the relation of the bos to the
caruca was constant. But as the question is one of undoubted perplexity, and
as some, like Mr Pell, have strenuously denied that the number of oxen in the
Domesday caruca was fixed,69 the evidence given below is as welcome as it
is conclusive:

I.C.C. D.B.
fo. 96 (a) 2: 'Dimidiæ caruce I. 202 (a) 2: 'Terra est. iiii.
est ibi terra.' bobus.'
fo. 103 (a) 2: 'iiii. bobus est I. 190 (a) 1: 'Terra est
terra ibi.' dimidiæ carucæ.'
fo. 103 (b) 2: 'Dimidiæ caruce I. 196 (b) 2: 'Terra est iiii.
est ibi [terra].' bobus.'
fo. 112 (b) 1: 'iiii. bobus est ibi I. 201 (a) 1: 'Terra est
terra.' dimidiæ caruce.'

fo. 112 (b) 2: 'iiii. bobus est ibi I. 202 (b) 1: 'Terra est iiii.
terra. Et ibi sunt. bobus, et ibi
Pratum dimidiae sunt, et pratum
caruce.' ipsis bobus.'

It is absolutely certain from these entries that the scribes must have deemed it
quite immaterial whether they wrote 'dimidia caruca' or 'iiii. boves'; as
immaterial as it would be to us whether we wrote 'half a sovereign' or 'ten
shillings'. It is, consequently, as absolutely certain that the Domesday caruca
was composed of eight oxen as that our own sovereign is composed of
twenty shillings. And from this conclusion there is no escape.70

Another point in connection with the caruca on which the I.C.C. gives us the
light we need is this:

I.C.C. D.B.
fo. 102 (a) 2: 'ii. I. 200 (b) 1:
carrucis ibi est 'Terra est iii.
terra. Non sunt carucis. Sed non
carruce nisi sex sunt ibi nisi
boves.' boves.

Here the Domesday text is utterly misleading as it stands. But the I.C.C., by
supplying the omitted 'sex', gives us at once the right sense.

V. THE DOMESDAY HIDE

Similar to its evidence on the Domesday 'plough' is that which the I.C.C.
affords as to the hide and virgate. In my criticism of Mr Pell's learned paper, I
strenuously opposed his view that the hida of Domesday was composed of a
variable number of virgates, and I insisted on the fact that the Domesday
'virgate' was essentially and always the quarter of the geldable 'hide'.71 The
following parallel passages will amply prove the fact:

I.C.C. D.B.
fo. 102 (a) 1: i. hidam et i. hidam et iii. virgatas
dimidiam et unam terræ.—i. 194 (a) 2.
virgam.
fo. 102 (a) 1: dimidiam ii. virg' et dimidiam—i.
hidam et dimidiam virg'. 194 (a) 2.
fo. 103 (a) 1: dimidiam ii.as virg' et dimidiam—i.
hidam et dimidiam virg'. 198 (a) 2.
fo. 103 (b) 1: i. hida et i. hida et ii. virg' et
dimidia et dimidia virg'. dimidiam—i. 190 (a) 2.
fo. 103 (b) 2: i. hida et i. hida et iii. virg'—i. 198
dimidia et i. virg'. (b) 1.
fo. 106 (b) 2: iiii. hidæ et iv. hidæ et iii. virg'—i.
dimidia et una virg'. 200 (b) 1.
fo. 112 (a) 2: xi. hidæ i. x. hidæ et iii. virg—i.
virg' minus. 192 (b) 1.

These are only some of the passages of direct glossarial value.72 Indirectly,
that is to say by analysis of the township assessments, we obtain the same
result throughout the survey passim.73 Here, again, we are able to assert that
two virgates must have been to the scribes as obviously equivalent to half a
hide as ten shillings with us are equivalent to half a sovereign. For here,
again, the point is that these scribes had no knowledge of the varying
circumstances of each locality. They had nothing to guide them but the return
itself, so that the rule, in Domesday, of 'four virgates to a hide' must have
been of universal application.

But not only were there thus, in Domesday, four virgates to a hide; there were
also in the Domesday virgate thirty Domesday acres. Mr Eyton, though
perhaps unrivalled in the study he has bestowed on the subject, believed that
there were only twelve such acres, of which, therefore, forty-eight composed
the Domesday hide.74 It is, perhaps, the most important information to be
derived from the I.C.C. that a hundred and twenty Domesday acres composed
the Domesday hide.75

We have the following direct statements:

I.C.C. D.B.
fo. 105 (b) 2: 'una i. 202 (b) 1: 'In
virg' et x. acre in dominio dimidia hida
dominio'. xx. acras minus.'
fo. iii. (a) 1: 'tenet i. 193 (b) 1: 'tenet
Rogerus comes xx. comes ii. partes unius
acras.' virg'.'

If 20 acres were identical with two-thirds of a virgate, there must, in a whole
virgate, have been 30 acres; and if a virgate, plus 10 acres, was equivalent to
half a hide minus 20 acres, we have again a virgate of thirty, and a hide of
120 acres. But the conclusion I uphold will be found to rest on no isolated
facts. It is based on a careful analysis of the Inquisitio throughout. Here are
some striking examples:

fo. 92 (b) 1. 'Belesham pro x. hidis se defendit.'

H. V. A.
Abbot of Ely 9 0 0
Hardwin 80
'Almar' 40
—— —— ——
10 0 0

fo. 99 (b) 1: 'tenet hardeuuinus de scal' vi. hidas et i. virgam et vii. acras de
rege.'

H. V. A.

Ely Abbey 2½ 0 9
7 Sokemen 1½ 0 6
3 Sokemen ½ 0 0
'Alsi' ½ 0 0 T.R.E.
2 Sokemen 1 7
5 Sokemen 3½ 0
—— —— ——
6 1 7

fo. 79 (a) 2: 'Suafham pro x. hidis se defendit.'

H. V. A.
Hugh de Bolebec 7½ 0 10
Geoffrey 1 3 0
Aubrey de Ver ½ 0 20
—— —— ——
10 0 0

fo. 90 (a) 'choeie et stoua pro x. hidis se defenderunt.'

H. V. A.
Odo 1 0 0
Reginald ½ 0 2076
Picot (1) 3 3 0
Picot (2) 4½ 0 10
—— —— ——
10 0 0

fo. 96 (a) 2: 'Pampeswrda pro v. hidis et xxii. acris se defendit.'

H. V. A.
Abbot of Ely 2 3½ 0
Two Knights 1 0 22
Ralf 'de scannis' 3 0
Hardwin 10
Picot 5
Hardwin ½77 0
A priest ½ 0
—— —— ——
5 0 22

fo. 107 (a) 2: 'Barentona pro x. hidis se defendit.'

H. V. A.
Robert Gernon 7 1½78 0
Chatteris Abbey 2 0 0
Ralf 20
Walter fitz Aubrey 40
Picot ½ 0
—— —— ——
10 0 0

fo. 108 (a) 2: 'Oreuuella pro iiii. hidis se defendit.'

H. V. A.
Earl Roger 1 1⅓ 0
Durand 3⅓ 0
'Sigar' 1⅓ 0
Picot 3¼ 5
Walter fitz Aubrey 1 0

Robert 1 0
Ralf 'de bans' ⅓ 079
Chatteris Abbey ¼ 079
—— —— ——
4 0 0

This last example is, perhaps, the most remarkable of all, in the accuracy with
which the virgates and their fractions, by the help of the five acres, combine
to give us the required total.

But, it may be asked, how far does the Inquisitio, as a whole, confirm this
conclusion? In order to reply to this inquiry, I have analysed every one of the
Manors it contains. The result of that analysis has been that of the ninety-four
townships which the fragment includes (not counting 'Matingeleia', of which
the account is imperfect) there are only fifteen cases in which my calculation
does not hold good, that is to say, in which the constituents as given do not
equal the total assessment when we add them up on the above hypothesis of
thirty acres to the virgate, and four virgates to the hide. This number,
however, would be considerably larger if we had to work only from D.B., or
only from the I.C.C. But as each of these, in several cases, corrects the errors
of the other, the total of apparent exceptions is thus reduced. Hence I contend
that if we could only get a really perfect return, the remaining apparent
exceptions would largely disappear.

In some of these exceptions the discrepancy is trifling. Thus, at Triplow, we
have 2 acres in excess of the 8 hide assessment—a discrepancy of 1⁄240. At
'Burch and Weslai' we have a deficit of 5 acres on 10 hides, that is 1⁄240. At
'Scelforda' the figures of D.B. give us an excess of 7 acres on the 20 hide
assessment, that is 7⁄2400. The I.C.C. figures make the excess to be 12 acres.

Another class of exceptions is accounted for by the tendency of both texts, as
we have seen, to enter a virgate too much or too little, and to confuse virgates
with their fractions. Thus at 'Litlingetona' our figures give us a virgate in
excess of the assessment, while at 'Bercheham'80 and again at 'Witlesforde'
we have a virgate short of the amount. At 'Herlestona' we have, similarly, half
a virgate too much, and 'Kingestona' half a virgate (15 acres) too little. Lastly,

at 'Wicheham', the aggregate of the figures is a quarter of a virgate short of
the amount.

A third class of these exceptions is due to the frequent omission in the I.C.C.
of estates belonging to the king. Thus at Wilbraham it records an assessment
of 10 hides represented only by two estates of four hides apiece. But on
turning to Domesday (i. 189 b) we read: 'Wilborham dominica villa regis est.
Ibi ii. hidæ.' The missing factor is thus supplied, and the apparent discrepancy
disposed of. So, too, at 'Haslingefelda' (Haslingfield), where the I.C.C.
accounts only for twelve hides and three virgates out of an assessment of
twenty hides. Domesday here, again, supplies the missing factor in a royal
Manor of seven hides and a virgate. We thus obtain, instead of an exception, a
fresh illustration of our rule.

Haslingfield

H. V. A.
Rex 7 1
Picot 4 3
Count Alan 1 ½
The same ½
Geoffrey de Mandeville 5
Guy de Raimberccurt 1 1 3
Count Alan 12
—— —— ——
20 0 0

Domesday omits altogether, so far as I can find, the holding of Guy, an
omission which would upset the whole calculation. But, in the case of
Isleham, the apparent exception is due to the I.C.C., not to Domesday Book.
Its assessment, in that document, is given as four hides. But the aggregate of
its Manors, as there recorded, gives us an assessment of three hides plus
eighty acres. Here any one who was rash enough to argue from a single
instance (as Mr Eyton and Mr Pell were too apt to do) might jump at the
conclusion that the hide must here have been of eighty acres. Yet Domesday

enables us to collect all the constituents of the 'Vill', among them the king's
estate, here again omitted. The real figures, therefore, were these:

H. V. A. D.B.
The King 6 0 40 i. 189 b.
Bishop of Rochester 1½ 0 20 i. 190 b.
Hugh de Port 1½ 0 20 i. 199 a.
Earl Alan 40 i. 195 b.
—— —— ——
10 0 0

Isleham, then, was a normal ten-hide township, and confirms, instead of
rebutting, the rule that the geldable hide contained 120 acres.81

The remaining exceptions are 'Somm[er]tona' partly explained by the
omission of terra Regis, 'Bathburgeham' (Babraham) with 21 acres short of
an assessment of 7 hides, and Carlton, which fitly closes the list of these
exceptions. For here, on an assessment of 10 hides, we have, according to the
I.C.C., 27 acres short, but, according to D.B., 53½ (27 + 20 + 6½). A
demonstrable blunder in Domesday Book and a discrepancy between it and
the I.C.C. are responsible, together, for the difference.82 Thus we see how
wide a margin should be allowed, in these calculations, for textual error.

It is necessary to remember that there were three processes, in each one of
which error might arise:

I. In the actual survey and its returns, 'by reason of the insignificance of some
estates, or by reason of forgetfulness, or inaccuracy, or confusion, or doubt on
the part of local jurors and witnesses, or of the clerks who indited their
statements'.83

II. In the collection and transmission of the returns, by the loss of a 'leaflet or
rotulet of the commissioners' work'.84

III. In the transcription of the returns into D.B., or into the I.C.C., plus, in the
case of the former, the rearrangement and abridgment of the materials.

We may now quit this part of our subject, claiming to have settled, by the aid
of the I.C.C., a problem which has puzzled generations of antiquaries,
namely: 'What was the Domesday hide?'85 We have shown that it denoted a
measure of assessment composed of four (geld) virgates or a hundred and
twenty (geld) acres. What relation, if any, it bore to area and to value is a
question wholly distinct, on which the next portion of this essay may throw
quite a new light.

VI. THE FIVE-HIDE UNIT

It is one of the distinctive and valuable features of the Inq. Com. Cant. that it
gives us the total assessment for each Vill of which it treats before recording
the several Manors of which that Vill is composed, the aggregate assessments
of which Manors make up the total assessment for the Vill. In this feature we
have something which Domesday does not contain, and which
(independently of its checking value),86 gives us at once those Vill
assessments which we could only extract from the Domesday entries by great
labour and with much uncertainty. Let us see then if these Vill assessments
lead us to any new conclusions on the whole assessment system.

The first point that we notice is this. The five-hide unit is brought into
startling prominence. No careful student, one would suppose, of Domesday,
can have failed to be struck by the singular number of Manors in the hidated
portion of the realm, which are assessed in terms of the five-hide unit, that is
to say, which are entered as of five hides or some multiple of five hides. This
is specially the case with towns, and some years ago, in one of my earliest
essays, I called attention to the fact, and explained its bearing in connection
with the unit of military service.87 Yet no one, it would seem, has been struck
by the fact, or has seen that there must be some significance in this singular
preponderance of five-hide Manors. Now what the Inquisitio here does for us
is to show us that this preponderance is infinitely greater than we should
gather from the pages of Domesday, and that when the scattered Manors are
pieced together in their Vills, the aggregate of their assessments generally
amounts either to five hides or to a multiple of the five-hide unit. Thus the
rural townships are brought into line with towns, and we learn that in both the
assessment was based on the five-hide unit.

Let us now take a typical Hundred and test this theory in practice:

Hundred of Staines

(Inq. Com. Cant., pp. 11-17)

Valets
Vill. Hides Ploughlands
(T.R.E.)
Bottisham 10 20 £16 0 0
Swaffham (1) 10 16 11 10 0
Swaffham (2) 10 13¼ 12 10 0
Wilbraham 10 17 20 0 0
Stow-cum-Quy 10 11 14 10 0
— —— — — —
50 77¼ £74 10 0

Here we have five Vills varying in area from eleven ploughlands to twenty,
and in value T.R.E., from £11 10s to £20, all assessed alike at ten hides each.
What is the meaning of it? Simply that ASSESSMENT BORE NO RATIO
TO AREA OR TO VALUE in a Vill, and still less in a Manor.

Assessment was not objective, but subjective; it was not fixed relatively to
area or to value, but to the five-hide unit. The aim of the assessors was clearly
to arrange the assessment in sums of five hides, ten hides, etc.

Take now the next Hundred in the Inq. Com. Cant.:

Hundred of Radfield

(Inq. Com. Cant., pp. 17-25)

Valets
Hides Ploughlands
(T.R.E.)
Dullingham 10 16 £19 5 0
Stetchworth 10 13¼ 12 15 0
Borough Green and Westley 10 17 17 1 4
Carlton 10 19½ 18 10 0
Weston 10 19¼ 13 15 0
Wratting 10 15¾ 8 8 0
Balsham 10 20 12 13 4
— —— —— — —
70 120¾ £102 7 8

Here again we have seven Vills varying in area from thirteen and a quarter
ploughlands to twenty, and in value from £8 8s to £19 5s, all uniformly
assessed at ten hides each. The thing speaks for itself. Had the hidation in
these two Hundreds been dependent on area or value, the assessments would
have varied infinitely. As it is, there is for each Vill but one and the same
assessment.

Note further that the I.C.C. enables us to localize holdings the locality of
which is unnamed in Domesday: also, that it shows us how certain Vills were
combined for the purpose of assessment. Thus Borough Green and Westley
are treated in Domesday as distinct, but here we find that they were assessed
together as a ten-hide block. By this means we are enabled to see how the
five-hide system could be traced further still if we had in other districts the
same means of learning how two or three Vills were thus grouped together.

We may now take a step in advance, and pass to the Hundred of Whittlesford.

Hundred of Whittlesford

(Inq. Com. Cant., pp. 38-43)

Hides Ploughlands Valets
Whittlesford 12 20 11 20 £15 2 0 £34 2 0
Sawston 8 9 19 0 0
Hinxton 20 16 20 10 0
Icklington 20 24½ 24 5 0
Duxford 20 20¼ 27 5 0
— —— —— — —
80 80¾ £106 2 0

Here we are left to discover for ourselves that Whittlesford and Sawston were
grouped together to form a twenty-hide block. And on turning from the above
figures to the map we find the discovery verified, these two Vills jointly
occupying the northern portion of the hundred. Thus, this hundred, instead of
being divided like its two predecessors into ten-hide blocks, was assessed in
four blocks of twenty hides each, each of them representing one of those
quarters so dear to the Anglo-Saxon mind (virgata, etc.), and lying
respectively in the north, south, east and west of the district. Proceeding on
the lines of this discovery, we come to the Hundred of Wetherley, which
carries us a step further.

Hundred of Wetherley

(Inq. Com. Cant., pp. 68-83)

Hides Ploughlands
Comberton 6 7
Barton 7 20 12 32
Grantchester 7 13
Haslingfield 20 2288
Harlton 5 7
Barrington 10 20 15⅜ 27⅞
Shepreth 5 5½

Ordwell 4 55⁄16
Wratworth 4 5⅜
Whitwell 4 20 5 293⁄16
Wimpole 4 5
Arrington 4 8½
— ——
80 1111⁄16

It is important to observe that, though the grouping is my own, the order of
the Vills is exactly that which is given in the Inq. Com. Cant., and by that
order the grouping is confirmed. Note also how, without such grouping, we
should have but a chaos of Vills, whereas, by its aid, from this chaos is
evolved perfect symmetry. Lastly, glance at the four 'quarters' and see how
variously they are subdivided.

Advancing still on the same lines, we approach the very remarkable case of
the adjoining Hundred of Long Stow.

Now it is necessary to explain at the outset that, the Inq. Com. Cant. being
here imperfect, it only gives us the first two of the above 'quarters', its
evidence ending with Bourne. But, by good fortune, it is possible to
reconstruct from Domesday alone the remaining half of the Hundred, and
thus to obtain the most valuable example of the system we are engaged in
tracing that we have yet met with. The grouping I have adopted is based on
the figures, but in some cases it is obvious from the map: Eltisley and
Croxton, for instance, which form a ten-hide block, occupy a projecting
portion of the county all to themselves, while Caxton adjoins them.

Hundred of Longstow

(Inq. Com. Cant., pp. 83-89)

Hides Ploughlands

Eversden 8⅓ 13⅜
Kingston 8⅓ 25 89⁄16 381⁄16
Toft and Hardwick 8⅓ 16⅛
Grandsen 5 9
25 32½
Bourne 20 [23
Gamlingay 20
Hatley 4¼ 25
5
[Unnamed] ¾
Croxton 7
10
Eltisley 3
Caxton 10 25
Caldecot 1¾
5
Long Stow 3¼
——
100

Several points are here noticeable. Observe, in the first place, how the
twenty-five hide 'quarter' which heads the list is divided into three equal
blocks of 8⅓ hides each, just as we found in Wetherley Hundred that one of
the twenty-hide 'quarters' was divided into five equal blocks of four hides
each. In these cases the same principle of simple equal division was applied
to the quarter hundred as we saw applied to the whole hundred in the first
two cases we studied—the Hundreds of Staines and of Radfield. Notice next
how the two Vills of Toft and Hardwick, which are separately surveyed in
Domesday under their respective names, are found from the Inq. Com. Cant.
to have combined (under the name of 'Toft') in a block of 8⅓ hides. Lastly, it
should not be overlooked that the ¾ hide not localized in Domesday fits in
exactly with Hatley to complete its five hides.

The chase now becomes exciting: it can no longer be doubted that we are
well on the track of a vast system of artificial hidation, of which the very
existence has been hitherto unsuspected. Let us see what further light can be
thrown by research on its nature.

On looking back at the evidence I have collected, one is struck, surely, by the
thought that the system of assessment seems to work, not as is supposed, up

from, but down to the Manor. Can it be possible that what was really assessed
was not the Manor, nor even the Vill, but the Hundred as a whole? This view
is so revolutionary, so subversive of all that has ever been written on the
subject, that it cannot be answered off-hand. We will therefore begin by
examining the case of the Hundred of Erningford, which introduces us to a
further phenomenon, the reduction of assessment.

Hundred of Erningford

(Inq. Com. Cant., pp. 51-68)
Hides
T.R.E. T.R.W. Ploughlands
Morden (1) 10 8 20
Tadlow 5 4 10½
Morden (2) 5 4 10¾
Clopton 5 4 7
Hatley 5 4 7
Croydon 10 8 11½
Wendy 5 4 6¾
Shingay 5 4 6
Litlington 5 4 11
Abington 5 4 3¾
Bassingburne 10 8 22
Whaddon 10 8 14¾
Meldreth 10 8 20½
Melbourne 10 8 19½
–— — ———
100 80 171

Here we have, as in the last instance, a Hundred of exactly a hundred hides
(assessment). But we are confronted with a new problem, that of reduction.
Before we form any conclusions, it is important to explain that this problem

can only be studied by the aid of the Inq. Com. Cant., for the evidence both
of Domesday and of the Inq. El. is distinctly misleading. Reduction of
assessment is only recorded in these two documents when the Manor is
identical with the Vill. In cases where the Vill contains two or more Manors,
the Vill is not entered as a whole, and consequently the reduction on the
assessment of that Vill as a whole is not entered at all.

After this explanation I pass to the case of the above Hundred, in which the
evidence on the reduction is fortunately perfect. The first point to be noticed
is that in four out of the five Hundreds that we have as yet examined, there is
not a single instance of reduction, whereas here, on the contrary, the
assessment is reduced in every Vill throughout the Hundred. That is to say,
the reduction is conterminous with the Hundred. Cross its border into the
Hundred of Wetherley, or of Triplow, and in neither district will you find a
trace of reduction. Observe next that the reduction is uniform throughout the
whole, being 20 per cent in every instance. Now what is the inevitable
conclusion from the data thus afforded? Obviously that the reduction was
made on the assessment of the Hundred as a whole, and that this reduction
was distributed among its several Vills pro rata.89 Further research confirms
the conclusion that these reductions were systematically made on Hundreds,
not on Vills. There is a well defined belt, or rather crescent, of Hundreds, in
all of which the assessment is reduced. They follow one another on the map
in this order: Erningford, Long Stow, Papworth, North Stow, Staplehow, and
Cheveley. Within this crescent there lies a compact block of Hundreds, in no
one of which has a single assessment been reduced. They are Triplow,
Wetherley (? Cambridge90), Flendish, Staines, Radfield, Chilford and
Whittlesford. Beyond the crescent there lie 'the two Hundreds of Ely', in
which, so far as our evidence goes, there would seem to have been similarly
no reduction. As the two horns of the crescent, so to speak, are the Hundreds
of Erningford and Cheveley, we will now glance at the latter, and compare
the evidence of the two.

Hundred of Cheveley

(Inq. Com. Cant., pp. 9-11)
Hides

T.R.E. T.R.W. Ploughlands
Silverley 6½ 4 8
10 6 12
Ashley 3½ 2 4
Saxon Street 5 3 793
Ditton 5 392 (or 4) 10
Ditton 10 1 16
Kirtling 10 6 21
Cheveley 1091
—
50

As a preliminary point, attention may be called to the fact that the grouping
of Ashley and Silverley, although they are surveyed separately in the Inq.
Com. Cant., is justified by their forming, as 'Ashley-cum-Silverley' a single
parish. So too, Saxon Street may be safely combined with Ditton, in which it
is actually situate. We thus have a Hundred of fifty hides divided into five
blocks of ten hides each, and thus presenting a precise parallel to the Hundred
of Staines, the first that we examined.

And now for the reductions. As the Vill of Cheveley, unluckily, is nowhere
surveyed as a whole, we have in its case no evidence. But of the five
remaining Vills above (counting Ashley-cum-Silverley as one), four we see
had had their assessments reduced on a uniform scale, just as in the Hundred
of Long Stow. Now this is a singular circumstance, and it leads me to this
conclusion. I believe that, precisely as in the latter case, the assessment of the
Hundred as a whole was reduced by twenty hides. This was equivalent to 40
per cent, which was accordingly knocked off from the assessment of each of
its constituent Vills. One of the Dittons is clearly an exception, having nine
hides, not four, thus knocked off. I would suggest, as the reason for this
exception, that Ditton having now become a 'dominica villa regis' (Inq. Com.
Cant., p. 10), was specially favoured by having a five-hide unit further
knocked off its assessment, just as in the case of Chippenham (Ibid., p. 2).94

It has been my object in the above argument to recall attention to the
corporate character, the solidarité of the Hundred. This character, of which
the traces are preserved in its collective responsibility, even now, for damages

caused by riot, strongly favours the view which I am here bringing forward,
that it was the Hundred itself which was assessed for geld, and which was
held responsible for its payment. Although this view is absolutely novel, and
indeed destructive of the accepted belief, it is in complete harmony with the
general principle enunciated by Dr Stubbs, and is a further proof of the
confirmation which his views often obtain from research and discovery.
Treating of 'the Hundred as an area for rating', he writes thus:

There can be no doubt that the organization of the Hundred
had a fiscal importance, not merely as furnishing the profits
of fines and the produce of demesne or folkland, but as
forming a rateable division of the county.95

Now there are several circumstances which undoubtedly point to my own
conclusion. We know from the Inq. Com. Cant., that the Domesday
Commissioners held their inquiry in the Court of each Hundred, and had for
jurors the men of that Hundred. Now if the Hundred, as I suggest, was
assessed for geld as a whole, its representatives would be clearly the parties
most interested in seeing that each Vill or Manor was debited with its correct
share of the general liability. Again we know from the Inquisitio Geldi that
the geld was collected and paid through the machinery of the Hundred; and
its collectors, in Devonshire, are 'Hundremanni'. The Hundred, in fact, was
the unit for the purpose.96 Further, we have testimony to the same effect in
the survey of East Anglia. But as that survey stands by itself, it must have
separate treatment.97

I need not further discuss the collective liability of the Hundred, having
already shown in my 'Danegeld' paper how many allusions to it are to be
found in Domesday in the case of urban 'Hundreds'.98 It is only necessary
here to add, as a corollary of this conclusion, that the assessment of a single
Manor could not be reduced by the Crown without the amount of that
reduction falling upon the rest of the Hundred. Either therefore, that amount
must have been allowed ('computatum') to the local collector as were terræ
datæ to the sheriff, or (which came to the same thing) the assessment on the
Hundred must have been reduced pro tanto.

I now proceed to apply my theory that the Hundreds themselves were first
assessed, and that such assessments were multiples of the five-hide unit.

We are enabled from the Inq. Com. Cant., to determine the assessments of
eleven Hundreds.99 Nine out of these eleven Hundreds prove to have been
assessed as follows:

Hides
Erningford 100
Long Stow 100
Triplow 90
Staplehow 90100
Whittlesford 80
Wetherley 80
Radfield 70
Cheveley 50
Staines 50

This list speaks for itself, but it may be as well to point out how convenient
for the Treasury was this system. At the normal Danegeld rate of two
shillings on the hide, an assessment of fifty hides would represent £5, one
hundred hides £10, and so on.

Can we discover in other counties traces of this same system? Let us first
take the adjacent county of Bedfordshire.

I am anxious to explain that for the means of utilizing the Bedfordshire
evidence I am entirely indebted to the Digest of the Domesday of
Bedfordshire by the late Rev. William Airy (edited by his son, the Rev. B. R.
Airy101). It was, most happily, pointed out to the author by the Rev. Joseph
Hunter 'that what we want is not translations but analyses of the surveys of
the several counties' (p. viii). To this most true remark we owe it that Mr Airy
resolved to give us a 'digest' instead of that usual 'extension and translation',
which is perfectly useless to the Domesday student. It is easy to take from the
record itself such an instance as these Beauchamp Manors entered in
succession (213): Willington 10 hides, Stotford 15; 'Houstone' 5, Hawnes 5,
'Salchou' 5, Aspley 10, Salford 5; but it is only Mr Airy's work that enables us
to reconstruct the townships, and to show how fractions—apparently

meaningless—fit in, exactly as in Cambridgeshire, with one another. His
work is all the more valuable from the fact that he had no theory to prove,
and did not even add together the factors he had ascertained. His figures
therefore are absolutely free from the suspicion that always attaches to those
adduced to prove a case.

Risely Tempsford Wymington
H. V. H. V. H. V.
7 0 1 1¾ 0 3
1 0 1 1 3 0
½ 0 4 1 4 0
½ 0 2 0 ½ 0
1 0 1 ¼ 0 3
1 0
—————— —————— ——————
10 0 10 0 10 0

Cople Eversholt Clophill
H. V. H. V. H. V.
4 0 2 0 5 0
5 3 7½ 0 4 0
0 1 ½ 0 1 0
—————— —————— ——————
10 0 10 0 10 0

Northill Portsgrove Chicksand
H. V. H. V. H. V.
1½ 0 1 0 ½ 0
1½ 0 7½ 0 3½ 0
½ 0 1 0 3 0

6½ 0 ½ 0 1 0
—————— —————— ——————
10 0 10 0 10 0

Eyeworth Holwell Odell
H. V. H. V. H. V.
9 0 3½ 0 4½ ⅓
1 0 6½ 0 5 1⅔
—————— —————— ——————
10 0 10 0 10 0

Pavenham Houghton Conquest Dean
H. V. H. V. H. V.
2½ 0 5 0 4 0
5 0 ½ 0 2 ½
2½ 0 4½ 0 2 7¼
0 ½
—————— —————— ——————
10 0 10 0 10 0¼

Of these fifteen ten-hide townships, the last is selected as an instance of those
slight discrepancies which creep in so easily and which account for many
apparent exceptions to the rule. Passing to other multiples of the five-hide
unit we have:

Oakley Thurleigh Blunham
H. V. H. V. H. V.
4 0 0 1 4 1
1 0 ½ 0 0 1

½
0 ½ 0
0 1 10 0
3 0
½ 0
—————— —————— ——————
5 0 5 0 15 0

Marston Roxton Dunton
H. V. H. V. H. V.
2 (less ½ virg.) 1 1 8 1
10 10
8 (plus ½ virg.) 0 4 1 3
1 1 1 5 0
½ 7½ 1 10 4½ 0
5
3 8 3 ½ 0
½
————————— —————— ——————
15 0 20 0 20 0

I now give three illustrations of slight discrepancies:

Streatley Sutton Eaton Socon
H. V. H. V. H. V.
1 0 0 3 20 0
4 1 1 0 6 3
4⅓ 0 1½ 0 0 1½
5
0 ⅔ ½ 0 0 ½
0 ⅔ 0 3½ 9 1
0 1½ 0 5½
2 0 2 ½
0 3 0 1

½ 0
0 1½
1 0
—————— —————— ——————
9 3⅔ 9 0½ 40 1

In the first case there is a deficiency of 1⁄120, and in the second of 7⁄80, while in
the third we find an excess of 1⁄160. No one can doubt that these were really
ten-hide, ten-hide, and forty-hide townships. We have to allow, in the first
place, for trivial slips, and in the second for possible errors in the baffling
work of identification at the present day. One can hardly doubt that if a
student with the requisite local knowledge set himself to reconstruct,
according to Hundreds, the Bedfordshire Domesday, he would find, as in
Cambridgeshire, that even where a township was not assessed in terms of the
five-hide unit, it was combined in an adjacent one in such an assessment.

We will now cross the border into Huntingdonshire, and enter the great
Hundred of Hurstingston. This, which may be described as a double
Hundred, was assessed, Domesday implies, at 200 hides. Quartering this
total, on the Cambridgeshire system, we obtain fifty hides, and this quarter
was the assessment allotted to the borough of Huntingdon.102 The total
assessment of the Hundred was thus accounted for:

Hides
Huntingdon 50
St. Ives (Slepe) 20
Hartford 15
Spaldwick 15
Stukeley 10
Abbots Ripton 10
Upwood 10
Warboys 10

Calne 6
Bluntisham 6½ 20½103
Somersham 8
Wistow104 9
Holywell 9
Houghton 7
Wyton 7
Broughton 4
Catworth 4105
———
200½

Passing on into Northamptonshire, we come to that most curious document,
which I shall discuss below (see p. 124), and which was printed by Ellis
(Introduction to Domesday, i. 187 et seq.). Ellis, however, can scarcely have
read his own document, for he speaks of it as a list 'in which every Hundred
is made to consist of a hundred hides'.106 This extraordinary assertion has
completely misled Dr Stubbs, who writes:

The document given by Ellis as showing that the Hundreds of
Northampton each contained a hundred hides seems to be a
mere attempt of an early scribe to force them into
symmetry.107

It is greatly to be wished that some one with the requisite local knowledge
should take this list in hand and work out its details thoroughly. In capable
hands it should prove a record of the highest interest. For the present I will
only point out that its contents are in complete harmony with the results that I
obtained on the Hundred in Cambridgeshire; for it gives us Hundreds
assessed at 150 (four), 100 (nine), 90 (two), 80 (four), 60 (one), and 40 (one)
hides, with a small minority of odd numbers. This list throws further light on
the institution of the Hundred by its recognition of 'double' and 'half'
Hundreds. Note also in this connection the preference for 100-hide and fifty-
hide assessments, which here amount to thirteen out of the twenty instances
above, and in Cambridgeshire to four out of nine. These signs of an

endeavour to force such assessments into terms of a fifty-hide unit will be
dealt with below.108

In Hertfordshire, as indeed in other counties, there is great need for that local
research which alone can identify and group the Domesday holdings. So far
as single Vills are concerned, Bengeo affords a good illustration of the way in
which scattered fractions work out in combination.

H. V.
Count Alan 0 1
Hugh de Beauchamp 6 0
Geoffrey de Mandeville 3 1
5 1
6½ 0
Geoffrey de Bech 1 1½
0 5½
0 3½
Peter de Valognes 0 ½
—————
25 0

If we now push on to Worcestershire, we find a striking case in the Hundred
(or rather the triple Hundred109) of Oswaldslow. Its assessment was 300
hides;110 and I am able to assert that of these we can account for 299, and that
it contained Manors of 50, 40, 35, 25 (two), and 15 hides.111 We have also, in
this county, the case of the Hundred of Fishborough, made up to 100 hides,
and remarkable for including in this total the fifteen hides at which Worcester
itself was assessed. The special value of this and of the Huntingdon instances
lies in its placing the assessments of a borough on all fours with the
assessment of a rural Manor, as a mere factor in the assessment of a rural
Hundred. By thus combining town and country it shows us that the
assessments of both were part of the same general system. This is a point of
great importance.

This case of the Hundred of Fishborough is, however, peculiar. The entry,
which was prominently quoted by Ellis (who failed to see its true
significance), is this:

In Fisseberge hundred habet æcclesia de Euesham lxv. hidæ.
Ex his xii. hidæ sunt liberæ. In illo Hundredo jacent xx. hidæ
de dodentreu. et xv. hidæ de Wircecestre perficiunt
hundred.112

Now this entry is purely incidental, and its real meaning is this. In the true
Hundred of Fishborough (adjoining Evesham on the east), Evesham Abbey
held sixty-five hides (assessed value), of which twelve were exempted from
payment of geld, a statement which can be absolutely verified from the
details given. To this aggregate was added the fifteen hides of Worcester
(though in another part of the county), together with twenty hides of the
distant Hundred of Doddentree. A total of 100 hides was that arrived at. Now
the Hundred of Doddentree had itself made up to about 120 hides,113 by the
addition of eighteen hides, which belonged to Hertford as to 'firma'.114 A
reduction, therefore, of twenty hides suggests a complicated process of
levelling the local Hundreds, which may remind us how large a margin must
be allowed for these arrangements.

Before leaving Worcestershire, attention should be called to the great Manor
of Pershore, which Westminster Abbey held for 200 hides, and to the 100
hides connected therewith under the heading 'Terra sanctæ Mariæ de Persore'.

In Somerset we find some good instances, with the help of Mr Eyton's
analyses.

Hundred of Crewkerne

Merriott (5 + 7) 12
15
Seaborough (1½ + 1½) 3
Hinton St. George 13
25
In Crewkerne 12
—

40

Hundred of Whitstone

East Pennard (19 + 1) 20
Baltonsborough 5
Doulting (14 + 3¼ + 2¾) 20
Batcombe (10¼ + 2 + 7¾) 20
Ditcheat (5 + 5½ + 6½ + 5½ + 1 + 7) 30½
Pilton (6½ + 3 + 5 + 5 + 2) 21½
Stoke St. Michael 3
——
120

There are also abundant cases of Manors which work out similarly such as
Walton and its group (4½ + 5 + 3 + 2 + 3 + 2½ = 20), Butleigh (7½ + 8 + 2 +
½ + 2 = 20). Again, in the Hundred of Frome we find eight Manors
(Camerton, Englishcombe, Charterhouse Hinton, Norton St Philip, Corston,
Beckington, Cloford, and Laverton), assessed at ten hides each, in addition to
divided Manors, such as Road (9 + 1), and Tiverton (7½ + 2½).115

We will now pass to Devon and examine the assessments of its Hundreds. Of
these thirty-one are entered in the Inquisitio Geldi. Now, as four virgates
went to the hide, such assessments as 25¾, 9¼ hides, show us that the simple
doctrine of probability is in favour of only one Hundred in every twenty
proving to be assessed in multiples of the five-hide unit. Yet we find that
those so assessed form an absolute majority of the whole. When classified,
they run thus—50 (four), 40 (one), 30 (two), 25 (four), 20 (five): total, 16
Hundreds.

It will at once be observed that these assessments are, as nearly as possible,
on one half the scale of those we met with in Cambridgeshire and
Northamptonshire. But this must be taken in conjunction with the fact that
the Devon and Cornwall assessments are altogether peculiar. 'In Devon and
Cornwall, where the scope of the gheld-hide was enormous, it was necessary
to introduce another quantity, intermediate between the virgate and the acre.

This was the Ferndel or Ferdingdel, to wit, the fourth part of the next superior
denomination, the fourth part of the virgate.'116 One might at first sight be
tempted to suggest that the hide was in these two counties a term of higher
denomination when we find Manor after Manor assessed at a fraction of a
hide, while in Cornwall the 'acra terræ' was clearly a peculiar measure.117 Yet
in some Manors adjacent to Exeter or to the neighbouring coast the
assessment is much less abnormally low, though even there moderate. There
is much scope, here also, for intelligent local research, although we may
conclude, from the evidence of the Pipe Rolls, that the hide represented the
same unit here as elsewhere, as it would seem did the Devonshire Hundred,
in spite of its singularly low average assessment. Indeed, it represented a
larger, not a smaller, area than usual. I shall deal with this phenomenon
below, and endeavour to explain its significance. For the present it is only
necessary to insist on the evidence that the Hundreds afford of assessment on
the five-hide system.

Indeed, though I definitely advance the suggestion that the assessment was,
in the first instance, laid upon the Hundred itself, and that the subsequent
assessment of its Vills and Manors was arrived at by division and
subdivision, the truth or falsehood of this theory in no way affects the
indisputable phenomenon of the five-hide unit. On the prominence of that
unit I take my stand as absolute proof that the hide assessment was fixed
independently of area or value, and that, consequently, all the attempts that
have been made by ingenious men to discover and establish the relation
which that assessment bore to area, whether in Vill or Manor, have proved
not only contradictory among themselves, but, as was inevitable, vain.

The late Mr Eyton did much to destroy the old belief held by Kemble and
other well-known writers that the Domesday hide was an areal measure and
to substitute the sounder view that it was used as a term of assessment, and
Mr Chester Waters, in his Survey of Lindsey (1883), claimed that the 'key to
the puzzle' had been thus finally discovered. Canon Taylor, on the other hand,
at the Domesday Commemoration (1886), claimed that if his own most
ingenious theory of the relation of the geld-carucate to area could be more
generally extended, 'many volumes of Domesday exposition, including,
among others, Mr Eyton's Key to Domesday, may be finally consigned al
limbo dei bambini'.118 Mr Pell's theories—the inclusion of which at enormous
length in Domesday Studies119 cannot be too deeply regretted—require a

passing notice. According to him, the Domesday hide was virtually an areal
term; but the interests of truth and of historical research require, as to his
confident calculations, very plain speaking. Although I devoted to the
investigation of Mr Pell's theories a deplorable amount of time and labour,120
I would rather state the inevitable conclusion in the words of that sound
scholar, Mr W. H. Stevenson:

All the fanciful calculations that Mr Pell has based upon this
assumption, including his delicious 'Ready Reckoner', may be
safely left to slumber in oblivion by the Domesday student
who does not wish to waste his time.

The only abiding principle underlying Mr Pell's calculations
is that the figures in Domesday, or wherever found, have to
produce a certain total that Mr Pell has already fixed upon. To
do this, virgates may mean hides, carucates may mean
virgates, and, in short, anything may mean anything else.121

Although Mr Eyton also indulged in 'fanciful calculations', and committed
the fatal error of combining facts and fancies, he was at least on the right
track in discarding the notion that the Domesday hide denoted a fixed area,
and in treating it as a term of assessment. At the same time, the acceptance of
my theory that this assessment was not determined by the real value of the
Manor or Vill, but was unconnected with it, would be, of course, destructive
of all his calculations.

The five-hide unit which lies at the root of my theory is found ever to the
front, turn where we will. In Oxon122 we find entered in succession the
Bishop of Lincoln's Manors 90, 60, 40, 50, 50 hides, while if we work
through the southern extremity of the county (lying south of Ewelme),
following the bend of the Thames, we find the assessments are as follows:
Preston Crowmarsh, 5; Crowmarsh Gifford, 10; Newnham Murren, 10;
Mongewell, 10; Ipsden, 5; North and South Stoke, 20¼; Checkenden, 5;
Goring, 20; Gethampton, 6½; Whitchurch, 10; Mapledurham, 10;
Caversham, 20; Dunsden, 20; Bolney (8) and Lashbrook (12) 20; Harpsden,
5; Rotherfield, 10; Badgemoor, 5; Bix 5. So too on the western border we
have in succession Churchill, 20; Kingham, 10; Foxcote (1) and Tilbury (14),

15; Lyneham, 10; Fyfield, 5; Tainton, 10; Upton, 5; Burford (8) and Widford
(2), 10; Westwell, 5.123

Berkshire undoubtedly offers a fruitful sphere of study. On the one hand, we
have so large a proportion of Manors assessed at 5, 10, 15, 20 hides, and so
forth as to strike the reader at once without special research; on the other, we
find these archaic assessments reduced under the Conqueror in the most
sweeping manner, and the old system thus effaced. Fortunately for us in this
case its existence is recorded in the Domesday entries of the previous
assessments. What is here, as elsewhere, wanted is a thorough local analysis
of the hidage, Hundred by Hundred. For no county is such an analysis more
urgently needed.

In Bucks the Primate's three Manors are of 40, 5, 30 hides, while nine
Manors of Walter Giffard follow one another with these assessments: 20, 10,
10, 20, 3½, 10, 5, 5, 10; and in Gloucestershire we are met on every side by
Manors of 5, 10, 15, 20 hides, and so on. In Surrey, the Primate's six Manors
are assessed at 30, 20 80, 5, 20, 14 hides. As a proof that this feature is in no
way of my own creation, I will take the Wiltshire Manors selected by Mr Pell
for his tables. Seven out of the eleven selected by him are five-hide
assessments, being 5, 10, 20, 40, 20, 5, 10. The marvel is that any one can
have failed to observe the general occurrence of the fact.

In Middlesex the five-hide unit is peculiarly prominent. We have only to
glance at the pages of Domesday to be struck by such assessments as Harrow
(100 hides), Fulham (50 hides124), Isleworth (70 hides), Harmondsworth (30
hides), while on folios 129b-130, we have seven Manors in succession of
which the assessments are 15, 35, 30, 30, 7½, 15, 10, representing 3, 7, 6, 6,
1½, 3, 2, multiples of the five-hide unit. But, here again, conspicuous as is
this unit even in the case of Manors, its prevalence would be still more
apparent, if we could reconstruct the Vills. Thus, for instance, in the Hundred
of Spelthorne we find these assessments:

Hides Folio
Staines 19 128
'In Speletorne Hundred' 1 128b

'Hatone' 1½ 129
Haneworde 5 129
'Leleham' 2 129
'Exeforde' 1 129
'Bedefunt' 2 129
Felteham 12 129
Stanwelle 15 130
'Bedefunde' 10 130
'West Bedefunde' 8 130
'Haitone' 1⅚125 130
'Leleham' 8 130b
'In Hundredo de Spelethorne' ⅔126 130b
'Cerdentone' 5 130b

'Exeforde' is Ashford, which 'appears from a very early period till after the
dissolution of the monasteries to have been an appendage of Stains'.127
Thus we obtain an assessment of 20 hides for Staines cum Ashford. So too
we have at once for Laleham an assessment of ten hides, while that of East
and West Bedfont was, we see, twenty hides. The most striking case,
however, is that of Hatton; for, if we add to its two named Manors the
nameless estates in the above list, the four fit in like a puzzle, giving us an
aggregate assessment of exactly five hides.

The hundred, therefore, was assessed thus:

Hides
Stains with Ashford 20
Stanwell 15
West Bedfont 10
East Bedfont 10
Laleham 10
Feltham 12
Hanworth 5
Charlton 5
Hatton, etc. 5

Let us now connect the territorial with the institutional unit. Dealing in my
'Danegeld' essay with the evident assessment of towns in terms of the five-
hide unit, I traced it to the fact that 'five hides were the unit of assessment
for the purpose of military service'.128 The evidence I have adduced in the
present paper carries further its significance; but we must not allow its
financial to obscure its military importance. I appealed, at that time, to the
Exeter instance:

Quando expeditio ibat per terram aut per mare serviebat hæc
civitas quantum v. hidæ terræ;

and to the service of Malmesbury:

Quando rex ibat in expeditione vel terra vel mari habebat de
hoc burgo aut xx. solidos ad pascendos suos buzecarlos aut
unum hominem ducebat secum pro honore v. hidarum.129

Of course this brings us to the notoriously difficult question of the thegn
and his qualification. With this I am only concerned here so far as it
illustrates the prevalence of a five-hide unit. Mr Little, who holds that
Maurer, followed by Dr Stubbs, has gone too far, and that 'there is no proof
of any general law or widely prevalent custom which conferred on the
owner of five hides pure and simple the title, duties, and rights of a
thegn',130 sets forth his view thus:

What then is the meaning of the frequent recurrence in the
laws of possession of five hides of land as the distinctive
mark of a particular rank?

An explanation may be hazarded: at the end of the seventh
century it was the normal and traditional holding of a royal
thegn.... It is not too much to infer from the parallelism of
the two wergelds, that five hides formed also the regular
endowment of a Saxon king's thegn.131

Dr Stubbs' views will be found in his Constitutional History (1874), i. 155-
6, 190-2, and those of Gneist in his Constitutional History (1886), i. 13, 90,
94. The latter writer follows Schmidt rather than Maurer, but sums up his
position in the words: 'Since under Ælfred and his successors every estate
of five hides is reckoned in the militia system as one heavy-armed man, the
rank of a thane becomes the right (as such) of a possessor of five hides.'

Lastly, it is an interesting and curious fact that we owe to the five-hide unit
such place-names as Fivehead, Somerset; Fifehead, Dorset; Fifield, Oxon;
Fifield and Fyfield, Wilts; Fyfield, Hants; and Fyfield, Essex—all of them
in Domesday 'Fifhide' or 'Fifehide'—as well as Fyfield, Berks, which occurs
in Domesday as 'Fivehide'. Philologists will note the corruption and its
bearing on the original pronunciation.

To the probable antiquity and origin of the five-hide system I must recur,
after glancing at the evidence for the northern and eastern districts of

England.

VII. THE SIX-CARUCATE UNIT

The subject that I now approach is one of the highest interest. I propose to
adduce for my theory convincing corroborative evidence by showing that
the part which is played in the hidated district of England by the five-hide
unit is played in the Danish districts by a unit of six carucates. In other
words, where we look in the former for 'v. hidæ', we must learn to look in
the latter for 'vi. carucatæ terræ'.

One must dissociate at the outset this six-carucate unit from the 'long
hundred', or Angelicus numerus, with which Mr Pell confused it. In Mr
Stevenson's instructive article on 'The Long Hundred and its use in
England',132 he has clearly explained that this reckoning only applied to a
whole hundred, which, if a 'long' hundred, was really 120. Any lesser
number was reckoned in our usual manner. This is seen at once in the test
passage at Lincoln (D.B., i. 336a), where 1,150 houses are reckoned as
'novies centum et lxx.', because 'hic numerus Anglice computatur, id est
centum pro cxx'.133 The persistence, in Lincolnshire, of the long hundred is
well shown in the Inquisitiones post mortem on Robert de Ros, 1311,
among those printed by Mr Vincent.134 We there read of 'c. acre terra
arrabilis per majorem centenam que valent per annum lx. s. prec' acre vj.
den.', at Wyville and Hungerton (on the border of Leicestershire); while at
Claxby and Normanby (in the north of the county) we have 'cc. acras per
minorem centenam et valent c. s. prec' acre vj. d.' Again, at Gedney (in the
south-east), we have 'cc. acre terre arrabilis per majus centum et valent per
annum xxiiij. li'. prec' acre ij. s. et iiijxx. acre prati et valet per annum viij.
li., prec' acre ij. s. Et cxiij. acre pasture per majus centum et valent per
annum ix. li. xix. s. vi. d. prec' acre xviij. d.' On the same property there
were due 'ccciiijxx. opera autumpnalia cum falcis, et valent xxxvj. s. viij. d.,
prec' operis j. den.', so that these also were reckoned by the long hundred.

Mr Stevenson was not aware of this evidence, but admitted that as the
Domesday passage refers to 'such a Danish stronghold as Lincolnshire, it is

not free from the suspicion of Danish influence'. His own evidence from a
sixteenth-century rental135 is subject to a similar criticism. For the general
use, therefore, of the 'long hundred' in England he is compelled to rely on
the Dialogus de Scaccario and Howden's description of the new survey of
1198, the 'hide or ploughland' being described in both cases as of a hundred
acres, where the 'hundred' must have meant 120. But I venture to think that
the use of this reckoning for the ploughland, or archaic 'hide', does not
establish its general employment. In Domesday, certainly, it is only at
Lincoln that we find it actually recognized, houses being reckoned
everywhere else on the usual system.

I think, therefore, that we fairly may hold the Anglicus numerus, or long
hundred, to have specially prevailed in the 'Danish' districts, which were
also assessed, we shall find, in sums of six and twelve. But what was the
boundary of this Danish district? It was not the border between Mercia and
Wessex, for Mercia was itself divided between the 'six' and the 'five'
systems.136 Of the two adjacent Mercian shires, for instance, of Leicester
and Warwick (afterwards united under one sheriff), we find the latter
decimal and the former duodecimal. The military service of Warwick and
Leicester was arranged on the same method, yet Leicester sent twelve
'burgesses' to the fyrd where Warwick sent ten. But, it may be urged, the
two shires were divided by the Watling Street, the boundary (under the
peace of Wedmore) of Danelaw. Was then the Danelaw the district within
which the systems prevailed? No, for the Danelaw, under this treaty,
included all Cambridgeshire and other hidated districts. The answer,
therefore, which I propound is this: The district in which men measured by
carucates, and counted by twelves and sixes, was not the district which the
Danes conquered, but the district which the Danes settled, the district of 'the
Five Boroughs'.

Dependent on these 'Five Boroughs' were the four shires of Leicester,
Derby, Nottingham, and Lincoln. For two of the Boroughs, Lincoln and
Stamford, both belonged to this last shire, which was, indeed, the
stronghold of the system.137 Between Stamford and Cambridge we have the
same contrast as between Warwick and Leicester, for while Cambridge was
divided into ten wards ('custodiæ'), Stamford was divided into six.
Lincolnshire, as I have said, was the stronghold of the system, and it is in

Lincoln itself that we find Domesday alluding eo nomine to the Anglicus
numerus, the practice of counting 120 as 100.

Now in the peculiar district of which I am treating there occurs an important
formula which covers Lincolnshire, Yorkshire, Derbyshire, and Notts.
Domesday has nothing like it for the other parts of England. Here are the
three passages in which we find it recorded:

Lincolnshire Yorkshire Derby and Notts

Pax manu Pax data In
regis vel manu regis Snotingehamscyre
sigillo ejus vel sigillo et in Derbin scyre
data, si fuerit ejus, si fuerit pax regis manu
infracta, infracta, regi vel sigillo data, si
emendatur solummodo fuerit infracta,
per xviii. emendatur emendatur per
hundrez. per xii. xviii. hundrez,
Unumquidque hundrez, unumquidque
hundret solvit unumquidque hundret viii.
viii. libras. hundret viii. libras. Hujus
Duodecim libras. emendationis
hundrez habet rex ii.
emendant regi Pax a comite partes, comes
et vi. comiti. data et terciam. Id est xii.
—i. 336b. infracta a hundred
quolibet ipsi emendant regi et
comiti per vi. vi. comiti—i.
hundrez 280b.
emendatur,
unumquidque
viii. libras—
i. 298b.

For comparison with these three passages we may turn to the charter of
immunities confirmed to York Cathedral by Henry I, Stephen, and Henry II.
We there read:

Si quis enim quemlibet cujuscumque facinoris aut flagitii
reum et convictum infra atrium ecclesiæ caperet et retineret,
universali judicio vi. hundreth emendabit; si vero infra
ecclesiam xii. hundreth infra chorum xviii. ... In hundreth
viii. libræ continentur.138

As there were twelve carucates in the 'Hundred', so it paid twelve marcs,
which, if we can trust the above explanation, themselves came to be termed
a 'Hundred'. Moreover, the 'Hundreds' themselves were grouped in
multiples of six. So too the Yorkshire thegn who held six Manors or less
paid three marcs to the sheriff; if he held more than six, twelve marcs to the
king (Domesday, i. 289b).

It is a special feature of the 'Danish' district that each territorial 'Hundred'
contained twelve 'carucatæ terræ'. This point is all-important. Just as a
'Hundred' to an Anglo-Saxon suggested one hundred 'hides', so to the Danes
of this district it suggested twelve 'carucates'. Nay, to the men of
Lincolnshire there could be no more question that twelve carucates made a
'Hundred' than there could be now, among ourselves that twelve pence
make a shilling. If we turn to the Lindsey Survey,139 a generation later than
Domesday, we obtain proof to that effect. We find that Survey, in three
instances, adding up all the estates of a tenant within a Wapentake, and
giving us the result in 'Hundreds' and 'carucates'. Here are the actual figures:

Car. Bov. Car. Bov. Car. Bov.
2 4 12 0 12 0
2 0 10 0 11 4
2 4 10 6 3 0
11 0 8 0 1 0
5 0 6 0 2 0
11 0 1 4 3 0

8 6 0 4 3 4
1 0
0 6
2 0
1 6
———— ———— ————
H. 3 6 6140 H. 4 0 6141 H. 3 5 4142

Now we must observe that these 'Hundreds' are not districts with 'a local
habitation and a name'; they are merely sums of twelve carucates produced
by compound addition. We further find, at the head of the survey of each
Wapentake, a note that it is reckoned to contain so many 'Hundreds', with
the explanation, in some instances that in each 'Hundred' were 'xii. carucatæ
terræ'.143 But even here the real unit is shown to be 'six carucates', for
several Wapentakes contain an odd 'half-hundred', while in that of
Horncastle this is actually entered as 'six carucates'.

Here are the nineteen Wapentakes, with the number of Hundreds assigned
to each, and the number of 'carucatæ terræ' that such Hundreds would
imply:

West Trithing

Wapentake Hundreds Car. terr.
Manley [ ]½
Aslacoe 7½ 90
Lawress 12 144
Corringham 5 60
Axholme 4 48
Well 7 84

North Trithing

Walshcroft 8 96
Haverstoe 7½ 90
Bradley 3½144 [and 3 bov.] 42⅜
Ludborough 3 36
Yarborough 14 168
Bolingbroke 8 96
Gartree 6 72

South Trithing

Candleshoe 10 120
Calceworth 10 120
Wraghoe 9 108
Hill 6 72
Lothesk 10 120
Horncastle 6½ 78

All the above, it will be seen, are multiples of the six-carucate unit. That the
aggregate of recorded 'carucatæ terræ' appears to differ, though slightly,
from the totals here given only shows how vain is the argument that,
because the recorded aggregates of Hundreds may often be uneven figures,
there could therefore have been no system at work such as I contend there
was. Clerical error and special alterations have both to be allowed for.

It has never, so far as I know, been pointed out that these Lindsey Trithings
were so arranged as to contain an approximately equal number of
'Hundreds'. So far as it is possible now to reckon them, the South Trithing
contained 51½, the North Trithing 51½, and the West Trithing 49½. Fifty
'Hundreds' would represent 600 carucatæ; and it is, to say the least, a
singular coincidence that, in the archaic territorial list that has hitherto

baffled investigation, the North Gyrwa, South Gyrwa, and Spalda are
reckoned each at 600 hides.145

I shall now give some instances of Lindsey townships assessed on the basis
of the six-carucate unit:

Car. Bov.
Willoughton 3 5½
” 2 2½
— —
6 0

Faldingworth 2 4
” 1 0
” 2 4
— —
6 0

Reepham 0 4
” 0 6
” 4 6
— —
6 0

Thoresway 0 2
” 5 6
— —
6 0

Benniworth 2 4
” 3 4
— —

6 0

Thorganby 1 7
” 0 5
” 1 6
” 0 6
” 1 0
— —
6 0

Beelsby 4 4
” 1 0
” 0 4
— —
6 0

Riby 1 4
” 4 4
— —
6 0

Rigsby 3 6
” 2 2
— —
6 0

South Kelsey 4 4
Thornton le Moor 1 4
— —
6 0

These instances will illustrate the value of the Lindsey Survey in enabling
us to group the fractional assessments which appear in Domesday Book.
Here are some other varieties:

Car. Bov.
Dunholm 5 3
” 2 5
” 2 0
” 2 0
— —
12 0

Glentham 3 0
” 0 10
Glentham and Caenby 7 6
— —
12 0

Scotton 0 4
” 0 4
” 2 0
” 6 0
— —
9 0

Irby-on-Humber 1 4
” 1 0
” 0 4
— —
3 0

Somerby 2 4
” 0 6
— —
3 0

Barrow-on-Humber 11 0
” 1 0
— —
12 0

South Elkington 4 0
” 8 0
— —
12 0

Winteringham 11 0
” 1 0
— —
12 0

Nun Ormsby 2 2
” 4 4
” 2 2
— —
9 0

Croxby 0 3
” 0 5
” 1 0
” 1 0
— —
3 0

Worlaby 2 2
” 0 6
— —
3 0

Lastly, to complete the parallel with the Leicestershire Hundreds infra, we
may take this case (cf. p. 63, note 122):

Claxby and Well 14
Claxby 10
—
24

Precisely the same system prevailed in Holland as in Lindsey, for the 'Testa
de Nevill' preserves for us the constituents of a Holland Wapentake, that of
'Elhou':

Pinchbeck 12
Spalding 12
Weston 6
Moulton 6
Whaplode and Holbeach 18
Fleet 6
Gedney 8
12
Lutton 4
Sutton 9¾
12
Tydd 2¼
—

84

The Lindsey Survey would describe such a Wapentake as containing 'Seven
Hundreds'.

Crossing the border from Lincolnshire into Rutland (i.e. the Rutland of
Domesday), we find the same system at work that meets us in the Lindsey
Survey. We read:

In Alfnodestou Wapent' sunt ii. Hundrez. In unoquoque
[sunt] xii. carucatæ ad geldum.... In Martinesleie Wap' est i.
hundret, in quo xii. carucatæ ad geldum.—D.B., i. 293b.

On analysing the contents of these Wapentakes, we find this statement fully
borne out, the former containing twenty-four, and the latter twelve,
'carucatæ terræ'. These are carefully contrasted throughout with the 'terra
carucæ' or areal measure.146

In Yorkshire, Notts and Derby, we have less direct evidence. Sawley, in
Derbyshire, has indeed been alleged to be entered in Domesday as a
Hundred of twelve carucates, but Domesday does not justify this assertion
being made.147 I would rather trust to the notable formula, which, as I
explained at the outset, is common to these counties for proof that they also
were arranged in 'Hundreds' of twelve carucates.

The prevalence, however, of assessment by sixes, threes, and twelves, meets
us on every side, as does, in hidated districts, the assessments by fives and
tens. At the outset, for instance, of the survey of Yorkshire we have the
district 'gelding' with the city assessed at eighty-four (12×7) carucates
(which would be described in Lincolnshire as seven 'Hundreds'). We have
two lists of the details, which are given here.148

Car. terræ Car. terræ
Archbishop 6 Archbishop 6
Osboldeuuic 6 Osboldeuuic 6
Stocthun 6 Stochetun 6

Sa'bura 3 Sa'bure 3
Heuuarde 6 Heuuorde 6
Ditto 3
Fuleford 10 Fuleforde 10
Round the City 3 Round the City 3
Cliftune 18 Cliftune 18
Roudclif 3 Roudeclif 3
Ouertun 5 Ouertune 5
Sceltun 9 Scheltune 9
Mortun 3 Mortune 3
Wichistun 1 Wichintun 3
— —
'84' '84'

These lists have a value independent of their illustration of the arrangement
in threes and sixes. They show how Domesday breaks down, when it
supplies a check upon its own evidence, by failing to make its details agree
with its total; and they further show by the discrepancy between them how
easily error may arise, and how rash it must be to argue from a single
case.149

Yorkshire presents other traces, in its Hundreds, of the same system. Thus
the townships in the Hundred of 'Toreshou' follow one another in this order:
18, 18, 20, 6, 18, 8, 12, 12 (8+4), 6, 18, 8, 18, etc. (infra, p. 80).

But my strong evidence is found in an invaluable survey of Leicestershire,
unknown till now to historians,150 which does for the carucated districts just
what the Inq. Com. Cant. does for the hidated ones. Here we find the
townships grouped in small blocks of from six to twenty-four 'carucatæ
terræ', as a rule with almost monotonous regularity. And these blocks are
further combined in small local Hundreds, of which the very existence is
unknown to historians and antiquaries,151 and which are usually multiples,
like the Lincolnshire Wapentake, of the six-carucate unit.

It will be remembered that in the case of Cambridgeshire, I selected for my
first two examples a Hundred of 50 hides, composed of 5 Vills assessed at
10 hides each, and a Hundred of 70 hides, composed of 7 Vills, assessed at
10 hides each. In Leicestershire, precisely in the same manner, I shall begin
with the simplest forms and select Hundreds of 36 and 48 carucates,
composed of Vills uniformly assessed at 12 carucates each.

Hundred of Scalford

Scalford 12 (11½ + ½)
Goadby 12 (6 + 6)
Knipton 12 (8¾ + 3¼)
—
36

Hundred of Kibworth

Kibworth (Beauchamp) 12
Kibworth (Harcourt) 12
'Bocton' 12
Carlton 12 (10 + 1¼ + ¾)
—
48

From these we may advance to other combinations:

Hundred of Harby

Harby and Plungar 18
Stathern 18
—

36

Hundred of Tong

Tong 12
Kegworth 15
18
Worthington 3
'Dominicum' 12
—
42

Hundred of Langton

Langton (1) 14½ (11¼ + 3¼)
Thorp (Langton) 24 3¾
Langton (2) 5¾
Tur Langton 12
24
Shangton 12 (10 + 2)
—
48

With these types as clues we are in a position to assert that where the total
assessment of a Hundred varies but slightly from a multiple of six, there
must have been some slight error in one of the figures. Thus Hundreds of
35½, 3413⁄16 carucates, etc., may be safely assumed to have been Hundreds
of 36 carucates; those of 41, 43⅞, etc., would be of 42 carucates; those of
48⅞, 50, etc., would be of 48 carucates. These slight discrepancies,
precisely as in Lincolnshire, are accounted for by Vills of 6 or 12 carucates,
being entered as of 5⅞, 513⁄16, 6¾, or 11⅞, 13, etc. Thus:

Hundred of Eastwell

Vills Carucates
Eastwell 12 (2 + 6 + 4)
Eaton 12¼ (3¼ + 9⁄16 + 87⁄16)
Branston 12 (7½ + 4½)
—
36¼

The most usual Leicestershire Hundreds are those of 36, 42, and 48
carucates, which, be it observed, would be described in the language of the
Lindsey Survey as 'Wapentakes' of 3, 3½, and 4 'Hundreds' respectively.
The name may be different: the thing is the same.152

It will have been seen by this Survey that the 'Vills', single or grouped, were
assessed precisely as in Cambridgeshire, save that there the assessment was
reckoned in fives and tens, while here it was in sixes and twelves.

VIII. THE LEICESTERSHIRE 'HIDA'

The case of Leicestershire introduces us to a very curious point.
Leicestershire is not one of those counties to which the singular formula
that I discussed above refers. This suggests that it was not arranged in
'Hundreds' of twelve carucates. The above Survey confirms this, for it
shows us Hundreds resembling in character those found in the hidated
districts. But although the twelve-carucate unit of the 'Hundred' is not found
in Leicestershire, we do find in it a group-unit, and that unit is the hida. Just
as we have seen the Hundred used in two wholly different senses, so also
was the 'hida'. The quite peculiar way in which 'hida' occurs in
Leicestershire (which was not a hidated but carucated district) completely
baffled Mr Eyton, and was misunderstood by Mr Pell.153 Both writers failed
to observe not only that the use of 'hida' is here of a peculiar character, but
also that the normal 'hida' of Domesday (from which they could not
emancipate themselves) would be quite out of place in this carucated
district.

The first point to grasp is that this Leicestershire 'hida' was a term which,
locally I mean, explained itself. It is used at least a dozen times in the
Survey of Leicestershire without any mention of its contents. Those
contents must have been, therefore, familiar and fixed. But what were those
contents? Three incidental notices enable us to determine them:

231 (a), 2: 'Ibi est i. hida et iiiita. pars i. hidæ. Ibi sunt xxii.
car' terræ et dimidia.'

236 (a), 1: 'II. partes unius hidæ, id est xii. car' terræ.'

237 (a), 2: 'II. partes unius hidæ, id est xii. car' terræ.'

Just as the 'Hundred' of Lincolnshire was a sum of twelve carucates, so the
'Hide' of Leicestershire was a sum of eighteen carucates.154 Working in the
light of this discovery (for as such I claim it), we find that the other 'hides',
thus interpreted, give us an aggregate of 'carucates' obviously suitable to the
recorded ploughlands.155 It may, however, be fairly asked why Domesday
should speak in one place of half a 'hide', and in another of nine 'carucates';
in one place of a hide and a third, and in another of twenty-four carucates.
The answer is that the singular love of variety which distinguishes
Domesday in Cambridgeshire (as we saw) is at work here also. For
instance, two equal estates are thus described: 'Willelmus iiii. car' terræ et
dimidiam et iii. bovatas, et Rogerus iiii. car' terræ et vii. bovatas' (fo. 234a).
The same instinct which led the scribe to enter these seven bovates as half a
carucate plus three bovates, led him also to enter ten and a half carucates as
half a hide plus a carucate and a half (fo. 237a).

But to the rule I have established there is a single exception. We read of
'Medeltone' in this shire: 'Ibi sunt vii. hidæ et una carucata terræ et una
bovata. In unaquaque hida sunt xiiii. carucatæ terræ et dimidia' (fo. 235b).
The actual formula employed is unique for the shire, and the figures are
specially given as an exception. But, with singular perversity, Domesday
students have always been inclined to pitch upon the exceptions as
representing the rule, forgetting that it was precisely in exceptional cases
that figures had to be given. In normal cases they would have been
superfluous.

Several years have elapsed since I wrote the above explanation, but I have
decided to publish it exactly as it originally stood. In the meanwhile,
however, Mr Stevenson has dealt with the subject in an article on 'The
Hundreds of Domesday: the Hundred of Land' (1890).156 He has advanced
the ingenious theory that the Leicestershire 'hida' was only a clerical error
for H[undred], and that it was really that 'Hundred' of twelve carucates
which we meet with in the Lindsey Survey. To prove this, he reads an entry
on 236a, 1, as 'Ogerus Brito tenet in Cilebe de rege ii. partes unius hidæ, id
est xii. car[ucatæ] terræ', and claims that this gloss defines the 'hida' as a
'hundred' of twelve carucates. I confess that to me such a rendering is in the
highest degree non-natural. If we speak of 'two-thirds of a yard, that is
twenty-four inches', we should clearly imply that the yard itself was thirty-
six inches, not twenty-four. Similarly, I claim to render the 'gloss' as
implying that the 'hida' itself contained eighteen carucatæ, not twelve.157 If
I am right, Mr Stevenson's suggestion that this 'hida' was really a 'Hundred'
also falls to the ground.

After careful study of the Domesday Survey of Leicestershire, I definitely
hold that in that county 'carucata terræ' was the geld-carucate and 'terra x
car[ucis]' the actual ploughlands.158 Now there are only three instances in
which the Survey records the assessment both in terms of the 'hida' and in
'carucatæ terræ', and in all three the figures support my own theory. The
Abbot of Coventry's Burbage estate (231a, 2), where a 'hide' and a quarter
equates 22½ 'carucatæ terræ', is a test-case, and Mr Stevenson there takes
refuge in a suggested 'beneficial hidation'. The exact formula, no doubt, is
peculiar, but reference to the text shows that 's[un]t' has been interpolated
between 'ibi' and 'xxii.' I suspect that the scribe had written 'ibi' (from the
force of habit) when he ought to have written 'id est'.

I close this portion of my essay by applying my own theory to the case of
'Erendesbi' (Arnesby). The relative entries are:

'Episcopus Constantiensis tenet in Erendesber iiias.
car[ucatas] terræ et dim. et unam bovatam (231).'

'W[illelmus] Pevrel tenet dim. hidam et iii. bovatas terræ in
Erendesbi (235).'

Put into figures they work out:

Car. Bov.
Bishop of Coutances 2½ 1
William Peverel 9 3
——————
12 0

So that Arnesby was a typical Vill assessed at twelve carucates.159

IX. THE LANCASHIRE 'HIDA'

There is one other case of a peculiar 'hide' in Domesday. This is that which
is found in the land 'between Ribble and Mersey', that district of which the
description offers so many peculiarities. We find it divided into six
hundreds, and of the 'hides' in the first, that of (West) Derby, we read: 'In
unaquaque hida sunt vi. carucatæ terræ' (i. 269b). Whether or not that
explanation applies, as is believed, to the whole district, we have here again
a 'Danish' place-name brought into direct relation with the six-carucate unit.
On the opposite bank of the Mersey lay the Wirral peninsula, in which this
system of assessment cannot be traced.

Mr Green alluded to the Danish 'byes' as found, by exception, 'about Wirral
in Cheshire',160 and held that Norsemen from the Isle of Man had founded
'the little group of northern villages which we find in the Cheshire peninsula
of the Wirral'.161 I cannot find them myself. In his 'Notes on the Domesday
Survey, so far as it relates to the Hundred of Wirral'162 (1893), Mr
Fergusson Irvine, in a paper which shows, though somewhat discursive,
how much can only be done by intelligent local research, has collated all
the Domesday entries. 'Raby' is the one place I can there find in the
peninsula with the 'bye' termination; while out of fifty-one entries twenty
refer to places with the English termination 'tone', and the Anglo-Saxon
test-words 'ham' and 'ford' are found in four others. There were, doubtless,

Norse elements in the peninsula, but they were not strong enough to change
the place-names or divide the land on their own system. In the same way,
Chester had its 'lawmen', though it was not one of the Five Boroughs, nor is
what I have termed the Scandinavian formula applied to Cheshire in
Domesday. So, too, there were lawmen at Cambridge, and their heriot
included eight pounds,163 which occur in the above formula as the twelve
marcs of the Danish 'Hundred'. Yet the whole system of Cambridgeshire
was non-Danish. It was only, in short, where the northern invaders had
settled down as a people that they were strong enough to divide the land
anew and organize the whole assessment on their own system.

X. THE YORKSHIRE UNIT

We have seen that the unit of assessment for the carucated districts of
England was 'vi. carucatæ terræ', just as five hides was the old unit in the
south. We have also seen that the former reckoning extended over those
districts which the Danish immigrants had settled. There remains the
question whether the Danes had merely substituted six for five in the pre-
existing arrangement, or had made a wholly new one for themselves based
on actual area.

It is primâ facie not probable that they can have adopted the latter course,
for the uniformity of their assessment proves its artificial character. Yet, in
his remarkable paper on 'The Ploughland and the Plough',164 Canon Taylor
has arrived at the conclusion that:

The geldable carucate of Domesday does not signify what
the carucate usually signifies in other early documents. The
'carucata ad geldum' is not as commonly stated by
Domesday commentators, the quantity of land ploughed in
each year by one plough, but it is the quantity tilled in one
year in one arable field by one plough.165

This 'novel and important proposition', as its author truly described it, was
probably the most notable contribution to our knowledge that the

Domesday Commemoration produced. The Canon's theory, which (so far as
his own East Riding is concerned) he certainly seems to have established,
is, at first sight, fatal to mine. But, on the other hand, my own theory can be
proved no less clearly for Leicestershire, where the 'carucata terræ' and the
ploughs are often connected in about the same ratio as in Yorkshire.166 This
leads us to inquire whether, even in the East Riding (where his theory works
best), we may not find traces of that assessment by the six-carucate unit
which I advocate myself. Such traces in Yorkshire we have already seen,167
but there is other and stronger evidence.

If we take the modern Wapentake of Dickering (the first on Canon Taylor's
list) and examine its three Domesday Hundreds of Turbar, Hunton, and
Burton, we obtain these results:168

Turbar Hundred

Hundemanebi 24
Ricstorp, Mustone, Scloftone, and 18
Neuton
Flotemanebi 6
Muston and Neuton 6
Fordun and Ledemare 6
Burton, Fulcheton, and Chelc 30
Chelc (2), Ergone, Bringeham, Estolf,
Fodstone, and Chemelinge 19
Nadfartone 23¾
Pochetorp 6
Helmeswelle and Gartune 44

Hunton Hundred

Flaneburg and Siwardbi 24½

Marton 9
Bredinton 18
Hilgertorp 6
Wivlestorp and Basingebi 12
Frestintorp 9
Eleburne ½
29½
Eston 6
Bovintorp 14
Gerendele 12
Ricton, Benton and Spetton 24
Bocheton 12
Fleuston 14
Stactone 6 27
Foxhole 7

Burton Hundred

Burton 12
Grenzmore (4+2) 6
Arpen (4+8) 12
Chillon (30+11+7) 48
Roreston (9+3) 12
Logetorp (1½+5½) 7
Thirnon 7
Ascheltorp (4+2) 6 36
Torp 3
Cherendebi 13
Caretorp (5+4+3) 12
Rodestain (8+8+8) 24
Twenc 17¼
Suauetorp 9

Fornetorp (4+14) 18
Butruid 12
Langetou (9+6) 15
Buitorp 5
Bruneton 3 42
Galmeton 8
Binneton 6
Widlaueston 5

The evidence of this last Hundred is so overwhelming that it cannot be
gainsaid.169

I claim, therefore, that my theory holds good even in Canon Taylor's
stronghold, but I do so without venturing to dispute the accuracy of his
own. How far they can be reconciled I leave to others to decide.

There are certain difficulties, however, which his brilliant suggestion must
raise. It is the essence of his theory that in a two-field Manor the ploughland
of 160 acres (half fallow) was assessed at one 'carucata terræ', while in the
three-field Manor the ploughland of 180 acres (a third fallow) was assessed
at two. This would be an obvious and gross injustice. Again, remembering
that, according to the Canon, the proportion of 'carucatæ' to ploughlands
should be either 2 to 1 or 1 to 1, what are we to make of such figures as
these, taken at a venture from a page of the Leicestershire Survey (232a, 1):

Carucatæ Ploughlands Carucata Ploughlands
1 2 12 8
1 ½ 11⅛ 7
2 1 9 4
5⅝ 4 7 6
2 1 6 5
2⅝ 4 2 4
1 1 10 7

6 4 9 6
8⅞ 6 ⅝ ½
½ ½ 6 4 (thrice)
28 22 4⅞ 3

It is certainly difficult to discover any regular or consistent assessment in a
system where the ploughland was represented by anything from ½ carucata
to 2¼ carucatæ. There is, however, in so many cases an approximation to
an assessment of three carucatæ for two ploughlands, that there seems to
have been some underlying idea, if we could only trace it out. But for this
there is needed a special investigation of all the carucated counties, a work
of great labour and requiring local co-operation. If we could have tables for
each county, arranged Hundred by Hundred and Vill by Vill, showing in
parallel columns the ploughland and the carucatæ ad geldum, we could
then, and only then, venture to speak positively. Till that is accomplished
we are not in a position to explain how a system of assessment, based on
actual area, could result in aggregate assessments uniformly expressed in
terms of the six-carucate unit.

XI. GENERAL CONCLUSIONS

In seeking a clue to the origin of that artificial assessment, of which the
traces, whether more or less apparent, linger on the pages of Domesday, I
propose to exclude the carucated district, because we require, as I have said,
more complete evidence as to the system pursued within it, and because,
being associated with the settlement of the Danes it represents a later
introduction, while the very name 'carucate', as I observed in Domesday
Studies, has, unlike the mysterious 'hide', an obvious connection with the
ploughland. Confining ourselves to the district assessed in terms of the
'hide', we seek to learn the origin of the system by which, as I contend, it
was divided for the purpose of taxation into blocks, each of which was
expressed in terms of the five-hide unit.

Now if we follow the clue afforded by the Cambridgeshire evidence, and
hold that the assessment was originally laid not on the Manor, nor even on

the Vill, but on the Hundred as a whole,170 it might be suggested that the
Hundred itself subdivided the amount among its constituent elements. In
practice, indeed, from the nature of the case, this principle must have
prevailed in every town assessed at a Hundred or Half-Hundred, for where
an urban community was assessed in 'hides' the burgesses must, as in later
days, have settled among themselves the proportion to be borne by
individuals or individual properties. If, then, they were able to do this, and
if, as I hold, town and country were assessed on the same principle, as part
of the same system, what was to prevent their neighbours, in the court of
the rural Hundred, similarly distributing among its constituents their
respective shares of the common burden?

We might even be tempted to go far further than this, and to carry our
discoveries to a logical conclusion. If, as is asserted, direct taxation ('geld')
began in England with the need for raising money to buy off the Danes, let
us ask ourselves how the Witan would proceed when confronted with a
demand, let us say, for £10,000. As there had been hitherto, ex hypothesi, no
direct taxation, there would be no statistical information at their disposal,
enabling them to raise by a direct levy the sum required. Their only possible
resource, we might hold, would be to apportionate it in round sums among
the contributory shires. Proceeding on precisely the same lines, the county
court, in its turn, would distribute the quota of the shire among its
constituent Hundreds, and the Hundred court would then assign to each Vill
its share. As the Vills were represented in the Hundred court, and the
Hundreds in the Shire court, the just apportionment of the Shire's quota
would be thus practically secured. The arrangement would, moreover, be as
satisfactory to the Witan as it was fair to the contributors inter se; for, by
this gradation of responsibility, the payment of the whole was absolutely
secured. This explanation is very tempting, and, indeed, such a system of
apportioning liability is to be traced from time immemorial in the Indian
village community.171 Moreover, if the ratio of 'hides' to ploughlands were
found to vary to any marked extent, according to county, the hypothesis that
the quota, in the first instance, was laid upon each county would duly
explain the ratio assessment being higher or lower in one county than in
another.

But such an hypothesis would imply that this assessment dated only from
the days of Æthelred, or circ. 1000. Now the five-hide unit, on the contrary,
was undoubtedly an old institution. Church lordships, the easiest to trace,
appear to have retained their hidation unchanged from early times, and the
'possessio decem familiarum' of Bede seems to carry the decimal system
back to very early days. Mr Seebohm, indeed—though, like others, he had
failed to discover the existence of the five-hide system—saw in this
'possessio' of Bede a connecting link with the Roman decuria, just as he
saw in the Roman jugatio the possible origin of English hidation. And we
must, of course, trace its artificial arrangement (1) either to the Romans, (2)
or to the Britons—assuming them to have had the same system as existed in
Wales for the food-rents, (3) or to the English invaders.

Arrested at this point by the difficulty of assigning to the system I have
described its real origin, I dropped these studies for some years in the hope
that there might come from some quarter fresh light upon the problem. As I
cannot, however, for lack of evidence, propound a solution capable of
proof, I will content myself with indicating the line of research that offers, I
venture to think, the most likelihood of success.

The proportionate sums contributed by the several counties to the Danegeld
present a fruitful field of inquiry, but one, it would seem, as yet unworked.
Mr Eyton, it is true, observed that 'in Devon and Cornwall the scope of the
gheld-hide was enormous',172 that is, in other words, the assessment was
strangely low, but it did not occur to him to seek the cause of the
phenomenon he observed. If, as was the case, West Wales was assessed on
quite a different scale to the counties adjoining it on the east, it may suggest
a conclusion no less important than that, when the latter were originally
assessed, West Wales was not yet a portion of the English realm. But, before
concluding that the hide assessment is proved to be as ancient as this, we
must see whether it is possible to detect any principle at work in the total
assessments of the several counties, any relation between their area and the
sums they contributed to the geld as entered in the Pipe Roll of 1130, our
first evidence on the subject.

For such an enquiry it is especially needful to insist on breadth of treatment.
In the first place, the modern area of the counties may vary more or less

from the original extent;173 in the second we have no proof that the
assessment had always been the same, though the tendency in early days,
no doubt, was to stereotype such figures. We must not, therefore attempt
close or detailed investigation but if, on a review of the whole evidence, we
detect certain broad features, uneffaced by the hand of time, we may fairly
claim that we have in these the traces of a principle at work, the witness to a
state of things prevailing in the distant past.

On comparing the contributions to a 'geld' at two shillings on the hide with
the (modern) area of counties, we find that a rate of about a pound for every
seven square miles prevailed widely enough to be almost described as
normal.

The three eastern counties work out thus:

Square Miles (At 1⁄7) Actual Sum

£ £ s d
Norfolk 2,119 3025⁄7 330 3 2
Suffolk 1,475 2105⁄7 235 0 8
Essex 1,542 2202⁄7 236 8 0

In all three cases the proportion to the square mile is between a sixth and a
seventh of a pound. In Cambridgeshire it is just under, in Sussex, just over,
a seventh:

Square Miles (At 1⁄7) Actual Sum

£ £ s d
Cambridgeshire 820 1171⁄7 114 15 0
Sussex 1,458 2082⁄7 209 18 6

Most remarkable, however, is this Midland group:

Square Miles (At 1⁄7) Actual Sum

£ £ s d
Leicestershire 700 100 100 0 0
Warwickshire 885 1263⁄7 128 12 6
Worcestershire 738 1053⁄7 101 5 7
Gloucestershire 1,224 1746⁄7 179 11 8
Somerset 1,640 2342⁄7 227 10 4

It is remarkable, not only for this agreement inter se, but also for the sharp
contrast it presents to the groups of counties, lying respectively to the south-
east and the north-west of it. The former approximates a rate twice as high,
namely, two-sevenths of a pound to the square mile:

Square Miles (At 1⁄7) Actual Sum

£ £ s d
Buckinghamshire 745 2123⁄7 204 14 7
Oxfordshire 756 216 239 9 3
Berkshire 722 2062⁄7 200 1 3
Wiltshire 1,354 3866⁄7 388 13 0

Taking this group as a whole, it paid £1,032 18s 1d, a curiously close
approximation to the £1,0214⁄7 which my suggested rate of 2⁄7 would give.
Middlesex was so exceptional a county, that one hardly likes to include it,
but there also the rate was a little over two-sevenths.

On the other hand, the counties to the north-west of what I have termed the
Midland group are assessed at a rate singularly low. Nottingham and Derby,
with a joint area of 1,855 miles, contributed only £108 8s 6d, representing
one-seventeenth;174 while Staffordshire, with its 1,169 miles, is found
paying £44 0s 11d, a rate scarcely more than one twenty-seventh. Passing to

the opposite corner of the realm, we have Kent, always a wealthy county,
assessed at the phenomenally low rate of about one-fifteenth (£105 2s 10d,
as against 1,555 miles), rather less than half that of Essex to its north, and
Sussex to its west.

It would seem impossible to resist the conclusion that in these widely
differing rates we have traces of a polity as yet divided, of those
independent kingdoms from which had been formed the realm. Kent, for
instance, which had so steadily maintained, first, its independent existence,
and then its local institutions, had succeeded in preserving an assessment
that its neighbours had cause to envy. In the west, Cornwall similarly
enjoyed a low, indeed a nominal assessment while that of Devon, though
higher than this, was so significantly lower than those of Somerset and
Dorset175 as to remind us that here, in part at least, the 'Welsh' long held
their own. If the incidence of geld were shown by shading a map of
England, on the plan so successfully adopted in Mr Seebohm's great work,
it would show that the heavily assessed counties were those which formed
the nucleus of the old West-Saxon realm.176 All round this nucleus the map
would shade off sharply, another sudden change marking the Danish
counties on the north, the Jutish kingdom on the east, and the British district
in the south-west. It is, perhaps, worthy of remark that Shropshire was
assessed twice as heavily as the adjoining county of Stafford, possibly
because part of it was added, at a very early period, to the kingdom of the
West Saxons. If Mr Eyton was right in his reckoning that Kesteven was
assessed twice as heavily as Lindsey, and Lindsey, in turn, twice as heavily
as Holland, it would illustrate the survival of local distinctions even within
the compass of a modern county, as well as the 'shading off' tendency of
which I have already spoken.

The point I have here endeavoured to bring out is that if the system of
artificial assessment were of Roman or British origin, we should expect to
find it fairly uniform over the whole country, whereas we find, on the
contrary, the very widest discrepancies. It might be urged, perhaps, that
these were due to the differing conditions of particular counties, to their
more or less partial reclamation, for instance, of the date when they were
assessed. But this would not account for the grouping I have traced, and
would imply that each county ought to differ indefinitely. Nor would it

explain the case of Kent, where a county that must have been foremost in
early development and prosperity enjoyed a phenomenally low assessment.

Another objection that may be raised to my hypothesis is that the Hundred,
as an area for police and rating, was a comparatively late institution, and
that if the artificial system of assessment were as ancient as I suggest, it
could not have operated, as we saw, in Cambridgeshire, it did operate,
through the 'Hundred'. It is, however, admitted that the thing represented by
the 'Hundred' was, whatever its original name, of immemorial antiquity, as
the intermediate division between the Vill and the Shire or kingdom.
Approaching the subject from the legal standpoint, Professor Maitland has
pointed out that the Hundred having a proper court, which the Vill had not,
was the older institution of the two, and has skilfully seized on the
differentiation of villages originally possessing one name in common as a
hint that some such subdivision may have been going on more widely than
is known. It seems to me to be at least possible that the district originally
representing a Hundred, and named, as we are learning, in most cases from
the primitive meeting-place of its settlers, was reckoned as so many
multiples of five or ten hides, and that this aggregate was subsequently
distributed by its community among themselves.177

If it be not presumption to touch on the controversies as to the Hundred,178
I would suggest that while agreeing with Dr Stubbs, that the name of
'Hundred' may be traced to the ordinance of Edgar179 —which did not,
however, create the district itself—I cannot reconcile it with the view to
which he leans in his Constitutional History, that 'under the name of
geographical hundreds we have the variously sized pagi or districts in
which the hundred warriors settled'; and that we should 'recognize in the
name the vestige of the primitive settlement, and in the district itself an
earlier or a later subdivision of the kingdom to which it belonged'.180 For
my part, I have never been able to understand the anxiety to identify the
district known, in later days, as a 'Hundred' with an original hundred
warriors, families, or hides. The significant remark on the 'centeni' by
Tacitus, that 'quod primo numerus fuit, jam nomen et honor est', would
surely lead us to expect that by the time of the migration the 'Hundred' had
become, like the 'hide' of Domesday, a term even more at variance with
fact. Indeed, in his masterly 'Introductory sketch', Dr Stubbs observed that

the 'superior divisions' made by the 'new-comers' would 'have that
indefiniteness which even in the days of Tacitus belonged to the Hundreds,
the centeni of the Germans', and that their 'system' would be 'transported
whole, at the point of development which it has reached at home'.181

The suggestion I have made as to the origin of the five-hide system is
tentative only, and must remain so until we have at our disposal for the
whole hidated region that complete and trustworthy analysis of assessment,
on the need of which I again insist, at the risk of wearisome iteration.

XII. THE EAST ANGLIAN 'LEET'

In Norfolk and Suffolk we find Domesday recording assessed values not, as
everywhere else, at the outset of an entry, but at its close; not in terms of
hides and carucates, but in terms of shillings and pence. Instead of saying
that a Manor paid on so many 'hidæ' or 'carucatæ terræ', Domesday, in the
case of these counties, normally employs the phrase: 'x denarii de gelto'. Its
meaning is that to every pound paid by the Hundred as geld the Manor
contributed x pence.182 Thus, in the case of a Hundred assessed at a hundred
hides, the formula for a five-hide Manor would be here 'xii. denarii de
gelto', instead of the usual 'defendit se pro v. hidis', or some such phrase as
that. There is an exact parallel to this method of recording assessed values
in the case of fractions of knights' fees where portions of land are entered as
paying so much 'when the scutage is forty shillings', instead of being
assessed in terms of the knight's fee.183 This system would seem, however,
to have been understood imperfectly if at all. I may, therefore, point out that
its nature is clear from the case of the Suffolk Hundred of Thingoe.

The case of this Hundred is singularly instructive. We find its twenty 'Vills'
grouped in blocks, precisely as in the Cambridgeshire Hundreds, and these
blocks are all equal units of assessment, like the ten-hide groups of the
hidated districts. But in this case we can go further still, for we are not
dependent on Domesday alone. The portion of a special Survey executed
about a century later (circ. 1185) for Abbot Sampson of St Edmund's, which

relates to its Hundred, is fortunately preserved, and gives us the name of the
twelve 'leets' into which this Hundred was divided.184

Here are the divisions recorded in it, with the Domesday assessment (in
pence) of each Vill placed against its name.

£ s d
Barrow 7
I. Flemington 6
Lackford 6
—
19 0 1 7

II. Risby 20 0 1 8

Saxham (A) 7
III. Saxham (B) 7
Westley 6½
—
20½ 0 1 8½

Hengrave 10
IV.
Fornham 10
—
20 0 1 8

Ickworth 7½
V. Chevington 6½
Hargrave 7
—
21 0 1 9

Brockley 7
VI. Rede 7
Manston 6
—
20 0 1 8

VII. Whepstead 20 0 1 8

Hawstead 13½
VIII.
Newton 6½
—
20 0 1 8

IX. Horningsheath 20 0 1 8

X., XI., XII. Sudbury 60 0 5 0
————
£1 0 0½

The two records—Domesday and the Inquest—thus confirm one another,
and their concurrent testimony establishes the fact not only that the Suffolk
Hundred was divided into blocks of equal assessment, but that these blocks
were known by the name of 'leets'.

Now Professor Maitland, in his Dissertation on the 'History of the Word
Leet',185 pronounces this 'the earliest occurrence of the word' that he has
seen. But I can carry it back to Domesday itself. Though not entered in the
Index Rerum, we find it in such instances as these:

'H[undredum] de Grenehou de xiv. letis' (ii. 119b).

'Hund[redum] et dim[idium] de Clakelosa de x. leitis' (ii.
212b).

I think it probable that in these cases the entry happened to stand first on the
original return for the Hundred, and so—as in the I.E., where it is derived
from the original returns—the general heading crept in. Though Professor
Maitland has to leave the origin of the word unexplained, it seems to me
impossible to overlook the analogy between the Danish lægd, described by
Dr Skeat as a division of the country (in Denmark) for military
conscription,186 and the East Anglian leet, a division of the country (as we
have seen) for purposes of taxation.

Sudbury, it will be observed, was a quarter of the Hundred of Thingoe,187
just as Huntingdon was a quarter of a Hundred,188 and Wisbech a quarter of
a Hundred.189

Having thus obtained from the Hundred of Thingoe the clue to this peculiar
system, we can advance to more difficult types. The Hundred of
Thedwastre, for instance, was divided not into twelve blocks, each paying
twenty pence in the pound, but into nine blocks, each paying twenty-seven.
This assessment allowed a margin of 3d for every pound (i.e. £1 0s 3d); but
in the case of Thedwastre the total excess was only 1½d on the pound (i.e.
£1 0s 1½d). I group the Vills tentatively, thus:

d
I. Barton 27

Fornham 6½
II. 26½
Rougham 20

Peckenham 13½
III. Bradfield 5 26½
Fornham St Genevieve 8

Thurston 16
IV. 27
Woolpit 11

Rushbrook 7
V. 27
Ratlesden 20
Hessett 18
VI. Felsham 5 28
Bradfield 5
Gedding 5
VII. Whelnetham 10 26
Drinkston 11
Ampton 7
VIII. Tostock 10½ 27½
Staningfield 10
Tinworth 14
IX. 26
Livermere 12
——
241½ (£1 0s 1½d)

The same unit of 27 (x9)—or, which comes to the same thing, 13½ (x18)—
was adopted in Risbridge Hundred. In this case no less than five Manors are
assessed at the same unit—13½d. So, again, in the Hundred of Blackbourn
the units are 34½d and 17¼d, one Manor being assessed at the former, and
five at the latter sum. Such is the key to the peculiar system of East Anglian
assessment.

It is to be noted that 'twenty shillings'190 represents ten hides at two
shillings on the hide (the normal Danegeld rate), and thus suggests that in
Norfolk, as in Cambridgeshire, the Hundreds were normally assessed in
multiples of ten hides. The point, however, that I want to bring out is that
the Hundred, not the Manor, nor even the Vill, is here treated as 'the fiscal
unit for the collection of Danegeld'.191

XIII. THE WORDS 'SOLINUM' AND 'SOLANDA'192

Several years ago I arrived at the conclusion that the identity of these two
words was an unsupported conjecture. So long as it remained a conjecture
only, its correction was not urgent; but since then, as is so often the case, the
result of leaving it unassailed has been that arguments are based upon it.
There appeared in the English Historical Review for July 1892 a paper by
Mr Seebohm, in which that distinguished scholar took the identity for
granted, as his no less distinguished opponent, Professor Vinogradoff, has
done in his masterly work on Villainage in England.

I believe the alleged identity was first asserted by Archdeacon Hale, who
wrote in his Domesday of St. Paul's (1858), p. xiv:

The word solanda, or, as it is written at p. 142, scolanda, is
so evidently a Latinized form of the Anglo-Saxon sulung, or
ploughland, and approaches so near to the Kentish solinus,
that we need scarcely hesitate to consider them identical.

Let us start from the facts. In the Domesday of Kent we find the form solin,
or its Latin equivalent solinum, used for the unit of assessment, like the hide
and the carucate in other counties. In the Kent monastic surveys it is found
as sullung or suolinga. But when we turn to the Domesday of St. Paul's, we
find—first, that instead of being universal, as in Kent, it occurs only in
three cases; secondly, that the form is solande, solanda, scholanda,
scolanda, or even (we shall see) Scotlande; thirdly, that it is not employed
as a unit of assessment at all.

The three places where the term occurs in the Domesday of St. Paul's are
Drayton and Sutton in Middlesex, and Tillingham in Essex. Hale would
seem to have arrived at no clear idea of what the word meant. At p. xiv he
wrote that 'a solanda consisted of two hides, but probably in this case the
hide was not of the ordinary dimension'. At p. lxxviii he inferred, from a
reference to 'la Scoland' in a survey of Drayton, that '"ploughed land" would
seem to be opposed to "Scoland"'. At p. cx he was led by the important
passage—'De hydis hiis decem, due fuerunt in dominio, una in scolanda, et
vii. assisæ'—to suggest that it 'appears to denote some difference in the
tenure'. This last conjecture seems the most probable. If we take the case of
Sutton and Chiswick, we read in the survey of 1222:

Juratores dicunt quod manerium istud defendit se versus
regem pro tribus hidis preter solandam de Chesewich que
per se habet duas hidas, et sunt geldabiles cum hidis de
Sutton.

Hale (p. 119) believed that this Solande de Chesewich was no other than the
Scotlande thesaurarii of 1181, namely the prebend of Chiswick. The above
passage should further be compared with the survey of Caddington (1222):

Dicunt juratores quod manerium istud defendit se versus
regem pro x. hidis ... preter duas prebendas quæ sunt in
eadem parochia.

The formula is the same in both cases, and a solanda was clearly land held
on some special terms, and was not a measure or unit of assessment at all.
Indeed Hale himself admitted that it could not be identified with one or with
two hides.

Fortunately I have discovered an occurrence of the word solanda which
conclusively proves that it meant an estate, such as a prebend, and was not a
unit of measurement. We have, in 1183, a 'grant by William de Belmes,
canon of St. Paul's, to the chapter of that church, of the Church of St.
Pancras, situate in his solanda near London' (i.e. his prebend of St.
Pancras), etc.193 This solves the mystery. The three solandæ at Tillingham
were no other than the three prebends—Ealdland, Weldland, and
Reculverland—which that parish actually contained.194

Hale, however, misled Mr Seebohm, who in his great work on the English
Village Community (p. 54), wrote of Tillingham:

There was further in this Manor a double hide, called a
solanda, presumably of 240 acres. This double hide, called a
solanda, is also mentioned in a Manor in Middlesex
[Sutton], and in another in Surrey [Drayton]195; and the term
solanda is probably the same as the well-known 'Sollung' or
'solin' of Kent, meaning a 'ploughland'.

Proceeding further (p. 395), Mr Seebohm wrote:

Generally in Kent, and sometimes in Sussex, Berks and
Essex, we found, in addition to, or instead of, the hide or
carucate, or 'terra unius aratri', solins, sullungs, or swullungs,
the land pertaining to a 'suhl', the Anglo-Saxon word for
plough.

Unfortunately no reference is given for the cases of Sussex and Berks, and I
know of none myself.

Turning now to the learned work of Professor Vinogradoff, we find him
equally misled:

Of the sulung I have spoken already. It is a full ploughland,
and 200 acres are commonly reckoned to belong to it. The
name is sometimes found out of Kent, in Essex for instance.
In Tillingham, a Manor of St. Paul's, of London, we come
across six hides 'trium solandarum'. The most probable
explanation seems to be that the hide or unit of assessment is
contrasted with the solanda or sulland196 (sulung), that is
with the actual ploughland, and two hides are reckoned as a
single solanda (p. 255).

Lastly, we come to Mr Seebohm's reply to Professor Vinogradoff (ante, pp.
444-465). Here the identity is again assumed:

Along with parts of Essex, the Kentish records differ in
phraseology from those of the rest of England. Their
sullungs of 240 acres occur also in the Manors of Essex
belonging to St. Paul's, and the custom of gavelkind and
succession of the youngest child mark it off as exceptional.
Mr Vinogradoff ... shows that in the Kentish district, and in
Essex, where the sullung or solanda takes the place of the
hide, and where gavelkind prevailed, the unity of the hides
and virgates was preserved only for the purposes of taxation
and the services; whilst in reality the holdings clustered
under the nominal unit were many and irregular.

I yield to no one in admiration for Mr Seebohm's work, but the question
raised is so important that accuracy as to the fact is here essential. (1)
Sullung is nowhere found in Essex, but only solanda; (2) Solanda does not
occur 'in the Manors' referred to, but at Tillingham alone; (3) In Essex it
nowhere 'takes the places of the hide', as it does in Kent; (4) The Essex
instance adduced by Professor Vinogradoff is taken from a Manor where
solanda does not occur.

Two issues—quite distinct—are involved. In the first place, Mr Seebohm
contends that Professor Vinogradoff must not argue from 'the custom of
Kent' to the rest of England, because (inter alia) Kent, unlike the rest of
England, was divided into sulungs, which points to some difference in its
organization.197 This contention is sound, and is actually strengthened if we
reject the identity of sulung and solanda. But, in the second place, he
endeavours to explain away the Essex case of subdivision at Eadwulfsness,
to which the Professor appeals, by connecting it with the Kentish system
through the term solanda. This, as I have shown above, is based on a
misreading of the evidence, and is contrary to the facts of the case.

Let us then look more closely at the Essex instance of subdivision. It is
taken from one Manor alone, the great 'soke' of Eadwulfsness, in the north-
east corner of the county. This 'soke' comprised the townships of Thorpe 'le
soken', Kirby 'le soken', and Walton 'le soken' (better known as Walton-on-
the-Naze). Such names proclaim the Danish origin of the community, and it
is noteworthy that the 'hidarii', on whom the argument turns, are found only
at Thorpe and Kirby, the very two townships which bear Danish names.
This circumstance points to quite another track. That the system in this little
corner of Essex was wholly peculiar had been pointed out by Hale, and it
might perhaps have originated in the superimposition of hides on a previous
system, instead of in the breaking up of the hide and virgate system. But
this is only a conjecture. The two facts on which I would lay stress are that
at Thorpe, according to Hale, 'the holders of the nine hides (in 1279)
possessed also among them seventy-two messuages', which, by its
proportion of eight to the hide, favours Mr Seebohm's views; and that the
holdings of the 'hidarii' were rigidly formed on the decimal system (such as
60, 30, 15, 7½ acres, or 40, 20, 10, 5 acres),198 unlike the holdings of an
odd number of acres on the Kentish Manors of St. Augustine's. The reason

for the Essex system was clearly the necessity of keeping the holdings in a
fixed relation to the hide, that their proportion of the hide's service might be
easily determined. These two points have, perhaps, I think, been overlooked
by both of the eminent scholars in their controversy.

Before leaving the subject of the sulung, one should mention perhaps that it
was divided (as Mr Seebohm has explained) into four quarters known as
juga, just as the hide was divided into four virgates. Mr Seebohm bases this
statement on Anglo-Saxon evidence,199 but it is abundantly confirmed by
Domesday, where we read of Eastwell (in Kent): 'pro uno solin se defendit.
Tria juga sunt infra divisionem Hugonis, et quartum jugum est extra' (i. 13).
So far all is clear; but Professor Vinogradoff, on the contrary, asserts that
'the yokes (juga) of Battle Abbey (in Kent) are not virgates, but carucates,
full ploughlands' (p. 225). This assertion is based on a very natural
misapprehension. In the Battle Manor of Wye (Kent) we find that the jugum
itself was divided into four quarters, called 'virgates' which were each,
consequently, the sixteenth, not, as in the hidated district, the fourth of a
ploughland. Professor Vinogradoff, naturally assuming that the 'virgate'
meant the same here as elsewhere, inferred that four 'virgates' (that is, a
jugum) must constitute a full ploughland. But this change of denotation
goes further still. The Battle Cartulary records yet another 'virgate', namely,
the fourth (not of a ploughland, but) of an acre! This led me, on its
publication, to wonder whether we have here the clue to the origin of the
somewhat mysterious term 'virgate'. Starting from the acre, we should have
in the virgata (rood) its quarter, with a name derived from the virga (rod)
which formed its base in mensuration. The sense of 'quarter' once
established, it might be transferred to the quarter of a jugum, or the quarter
of a hide. This is a suggestion which, of course, I advance with all
diffidence, but which would solve an otherwise insoluble problem. The
relation of the bovate to the carucate, and of the jugum to the sulung, are
both so obviously based upon the unit of the plough-team that they raise no
difficulty. But the term 'virgate' does not, like them, speak for itself. If we
might take it to denote merely a 'quarter' of the hide, it would become a
term of relation only, leaving the 'hide' as the original unit. Should this
suggestion meet with acceptance, it might obviously lead to rather
important results.

Mr Elton, in his well-known Tenures of Kent, attaches considerable
importance to a list, 'De Suylingis Comitatus Kanciæ et qui eas tenent', in
the Cottonian MS., Claud. C. IV, which he placed little subsequent to
Domesday. Having transcribed it for collation with the Survey, I came to the
conclusion that it was not sufficiently trustworthy for publication, for the
names, in my opinion, involve some anachronism. The feature of the list is
that it shows us as tenants-in-chief, the leading tenants of Bishop Odo; and
the change of most interest to genealogists is the succession of Patrick 'de
Caurcio' to the holding of Ernulf de Hesdin.

XIV. THE 'FIRMA UNIUS NOCTIS'

The curious and evidently archaic institution of the firma unius noctis was
clearly connected with the problem of hidation. In Somerset the formula for
a Manor contributing to this firma was:

Nunquam geldavit nec scitur quot hidæ sint ibi (i. 85).

In Dorset it ran:

Nescitur quot hidæ sint ibi quia non geldabat T.R.E. (i. 75).

In Wiltshire we read:

Nunquam geldavit nec hidata fuit, or nunquam geldavit:
ideo nescitur quot hidæ sint ibi.200

In all these entries the 'hide' is recognized as merely a measure of
assessment quite independent of area.

Hampshire affords us, in a group of Manors, a peculiarly good instance in
point. Of Basingstoke, Kingsclere, and 'Esseborne', we read:

Rex tenet in dominio Basingestoches. Regale manerium fuit
semper. Numquam geldum dedit, nec hida ibi distributa
fuit....

Clere tenet rex in dominio. De firma Regis Edwardi fuit, et
pertinet ad firmam diei de Basingestoches. Numerum
hidarum nescierunt....

Esseborne tenet rex in dominio. De firma Regis Edwardi
fuit. Numerum hidarum non habent....

Hæc tria maneria, Basingestoches, Clere, Esseborne, reddunt
firmam unius diei (39).

Other Manors are found about the county displaying the same peculiarity.

Ipse rex tenet Bertune. De firmâ Regis E. fuit, et dimidiam
diem firmæ reddidit in omnibus rebus.... Nunquam in hid(is)
numeratum fuit.... Numerum hidarum non dixerunt.

Ipse rex tenet Edlinges in dominio. Hoc manerium reddidit
dimidiam diem firmæ tempore Regis E. Numerum hidarum
nesciunt (38).

Manors, such as Andover, not hidated, clearly belonged to the same system,
though neither their value nor their render is given.

Thus, then, within the limits of Wessex, in the four adjacent counties of
Dorset, Somerset, Wiltshire, and Hants, we find surviving, at the time of the
Conquest, an archaic but uniform system of provision for the needs of the
Crown by the assignment of certain estates or groups of estates, the render
of which was expressed in terms of the 'firma noctis' or 'firma diei', and
which, unlike the country around them, had never been assessed in 'hides'.

Mr Seebohm hints slightly at this firma system,201 but only speaks of it as
existing in Dorset. Nor does he allude to the significant fact of such Manors
having never been hidated. It would lead us far afield to speculate on the
origin of this system, or to trace its possible connection with the Welsh
gwestva.202 Nor can we here concern ourselves with the few scattered traces
of it that we meet with elsewhere in Domesday. Its existence in four
adjacent counties, with non-hidation as a common feature, is the point I
wish to emphasize.

The system of grouping townships in the west for the payment of a food-
rent (firma unius noctis) was exactly parallel to the grouping in the east for
the payment, not of rent but of 'geld'. We can best trace this parallel in
Somerset, because the firma unius noctis of the days before the Conquest
had been there commuted for a money payment at the time of Domesday.
Turning to the Cambridgeshire hundred of Long Stow, we find one of its
'blocks' (of twenty-five hides) divided into three equal parts, while another
is divided into three parts, of which one is half the size of the two others.
And so in Somerset we have Frome and Bedminster combined in one group
for the payment of this firma, and the two Perrotts similarly combined with
Curry. Frome and Bedminster are each assigned the same payment, but in
the other group the contribution of one is half that of the two others.

Here are the Somerset groups of demesne, each charged with the render of a
firma unius noctis.

Commutation £ s d
Somerton (with Borough of 79 10 7
Langport)
100 10 9½
Chedder (with borough of 21 0 2½
Axbridge)
North Petherton 42 8 4
South Petherton 42 8 4 106 0 10
Curry Rivell 21 4 2

Williton
Carhampton 105 17 4½
Cannington

Frome 53 0 5
106 0 10
Bruton 53 0 5

Milborne Port (with
79 10 7
Ilchester)

[Bedminster203 21 0 2½]

Of these two last, Milborne Port is entered as having paid three-quarters of
a firma noctis under the Confessor, while Bedminster—though in the midst
of this group of firma Manors—is alone in having no render T.R.E.
assigned to it. One is tempted to look on the two as originally combined in
one firma (like Somerton and Chedder), save that the whole width of the
county divides them, while in the other cases the constituents are grouped
geographically.

The Wiltshire Manors, each of which rendered a firma unius noctis, were:

Ploughlands Valets
Calne 29
Bedwin 79
Amesbury 40
Warminster 40
Chippenham 100 £110
'Theodulveshide' 40 £100

From the figures given for Somerset and Wilts, it may fairly be concluded
that, in this district, the value of the 'firma' was about £105. In Somerset,
however, there was clearly a special sum, £106 0s 10d, on which
calculations were based.

An examination of Mr Eyton's statements on the firma unius noctis in
Somerset and Dorset would prove a peculiarly conclusive test of his whole
system.

In the case of Somerset one need not dwell on his giving its amount for the
Williton group as £105 16s 6½d, when the sum named is £105 17s 4½d,
although absolute accuracy is, in these matters, essential. We will pass at
once to the bottom of the page (ii. 2), and collate his rendering of
Domesday with the original:

'T.R.E. 'Reddebat
reddebat T.R.E.
dimidiam dimidiam
firmam noctis
noctis et firmam et
quadrantem' unum
(Domesday). quadrantem'
(Eyton).

Domesday gives the payment (in a characteristic phrase), as three-quarters
[a half and a quarter] of a firma noctis. Mr Eyton first interpolates a 'unum',
and then overlooks the 'quadrantem', with the result that he represents the
due T.R.E. as a firma dimidiæ noctis (i. 77). So far, this is only a matter of
error per se. But Domesday records the commutation of the due T.R.W. at
£79 10s 7d. This proves to be three-quarters of the commutation, in two
other cases, for a whole firma noctis (£106 0s 10d). Mr Eyton, however,
imagining the due to have been only half a firma set himself to account for
its commutation at so high a figure (i. 77-8). This he found no difficulty in
doing. He explained that 'this was not a mere commutation', but 'was
doubtless a change which took into consideration the extra means and
enhanced value of Meleborne'.

The probability is, then, that what we have called the
enhanced ferm, was enhanced by something less than the
gross profits we have instanced; that is, that a part of those
profits, say the Burgage rents, or some of them, had
contributed to the dimidia firma noctis before the
commutation.

All these ready assumptions, we must remember, are introduced to account
for a discrepancy which does not exist.

Great masses of Mr Eyton's work consist of similar guesses and
assumptions. Now, if these were kept scrupulously apart from the facts,
they would not much matter; but they are so inextricably confused with the
real facts of Domesday that, virtually, one can never be sure if one is
dealing with facts or fancies.

And far more startling than the case of Somerset is that of Dorset, the 'Key
to Domesday'. Mr Eyton here held that Dorchester, Bridport, and Wareham
paid a full firma unius noctis each, the total amount being reckoned by him
at the astounding figure of £312 (p. 70)! Exeter, which affords a good
comparison, paid only £18 (as render), though the king had 285 houses
there: the three Dorset towns in which, says Mr Eyton, the Crown had 323
houses, paid in all, according to him, £312. The mere comparison of these
figures is sufficient. But further, Mr Eyton observes (p. 93), that in 1156
'Fordington, Dorchester, and Bridport' were granted by Henry II to his
uncle, 'as representing Royal Demesne to the annual value of £60'. This is
an instructive commentary on his view that Dorchester and Bridport alone
rendered £208 per annum. Our doubts being thus aroused, we turn to
Domesday and find that it does not speak of any of these towns as paying
that preposterous firma. The right formula for that would be 'reddit firmam
unius noctis' (p. 84). Instead of that, we only have 'exceptis consuetudinibus
quæ pertinent ad firmam unius noctis' (p. 70). The explanation is quite
simple. Just as in Somerset, Mr Eyton admits, Langport and Ilchester,
although boroughs, were 'interned' in groups of Royal demesne, paying the
firma unius noctis, so in Dorset the boroughs were 'interned' in groups of
Royal demesne. Indeed one of these groups was headed by Dorchester, and
is styled by Mr Eyton the 'Dorchester group'. But he boldly assumed that
'Dorchester' must have two different meanings:

[A] We assume about 100 acres to have belonged to the
Domesday Burgh, and perhaps 882 acres to represent land,
subinfeuded at Domesday, and annexed to Dorchester
Hundred. [B] It follows that we assume about 429 acres, [to
be that] ... which here figures [fo. 75] under the name
Dorchester.

It is not too much to say that any one, who refers to pp. 70-3, 78-101 of the
Key to Domesday, will find that the singular misconception as to the Dorset
Boroughs makes havoc of the whole calculation. But here again the point to
be insisted on is not the mere mistake per se, but the elaborate assumptions
based upon it and permeating the whole work.204

Apart from the Manors grouped for a firma unius noctis, if we take the
comital Manors (mansiones de comitatu) of Somerset, which were in the
King's hands in 1086, we find their rentals given on quite a different
principle to those of the Manors in private hands.

(1) They are entered as renders ('reddit'), not as values ('valet').

(2) The sums rendered are 'de albo argento'.

(3) In at least ten out of the fifteen cases, they are multiples of the strange
unit £1 3s.

As this fact seems to have escaped Mr Eyton's notice, I append a list of
these Manors, showing the multiples of this unit that their renders represent:

£ s d
Crewkerne 46 0 0 40
Congresbury 28 15 0 25
Old Cleeve 23 0 0 20
North Curry 23 0 0 20
Henstridge 23 0 0 20
Camel 23 0 0 20
Dulverton 11 10 0 10
Creech St Michael 9 4 0 8
Langford 4 12 0 4
Capton205 2 6 0 2

Whatever this strange unit represented, it formed the basis in these Manors
of a reckoning wholly independent of the 'hides' or ploughlands of the
Manor, and as clearly artificial as the system of hidation I have made it my
business to explain.

XV. 'WARA'

The meaning of 'Wara' is made indisputable by the I.C.C. When land was an
appurtenance, quoad ownership, of a Manor in one township, but was
assessed in another in which it actually lay, the land was said to be in the
former, but its 'wara' in the latter. As this 'wara' was an integral part of the
total assessment of the township, it had to be recorded, under its township,
in the I.C.C. Here are the three examples in point:

[Histon.] De his xx. hidis jacet Warra de una hida et dimidia
in hestitone de manerio cestreford. Hanc terram tenuit comes
alanus [sic] et est appretiata in essexia (p. 40).

[Shelford.] De his xx. hidis tenet petrus valonensis iii. hidas
de firma regis in neueport.... Hæc terra est berewica in
neueport, sed Wara jacet in grantebrigge syra (p. 49).

[Trumpington.] De his vii. hidis [tenet] unus burgensis de
grenteburga i. virgam. Et Warra jacet in trompintona, et terra
in grantebrigga (p. 51).

To these I may add a fourth instance, although in this case the name wara
does not occur:

[Bathburgam.] De his vii. hidis tenet Picotus in manu regis
dimidiam hidam et dimidiam virgam. Hæc terra jacet in
cestreforda et ibi est appretiata xxx. sol. in essexia (p. 36).

The lands at Histon and 'Bathburgam' were mere outlying portions of the
royal Manor of Chesterford in Essex, and those at Shelford were a
'berewick' of the royal Manor of Newport, also in Essex. But they were all
assessed in Cambridgeshire, where they actually lay.

So also we read under Berkshire (61b): 'Hæc terra jacet et appreciata est in
Gratentun quod est in Oxenefordscire, et tamen dat scotum in Berchesire'.
Again (203b) we read under Pertenhall: 'Hec terra sita est in Bedefordsire,
set geldum et servitium reddit in Hontedunscyre'. A good instance of the
same arrangement in another part of England is found in those
Worcestershire Manors which were annexed as estates to Hereford, but

which were assessed in those Worcestershire Hundreds where they actually
lay (see p. 60).

A similar expression is applied to the possession of 'soca'. Thus under
Shelford we read:

De hac terra adhuc tenuerunt iii. sochemanni dimidiam
hidam sub gurdo comite. Non potuerunt recedere sine
licentia comitis gurdi. Et soca jacebat in Witlesforda (p. 48).

Here the land was in Shelford, but the jurisdiction (soca) was attached to
Earl Gyrth's Manor of Whittlesford.

Prof Vinogradoff has dealt with 'the word wara' in his Villainage in England
(i. 241-4), and asserts that the 'origin and use of the term is of considerable
importance'. But he does not allude to the above evidence, and I cannot
follow him in his argument. While rightly disregarding Mr Pell's fanciful
derivation from 'warectum', he asserts that:

We often find the expression 'ad inwaram' in Domesday, and
it corresponds to the plain 'ad gildam [sic] regis'. If a Manor
is said to contain seven hides ad inwaram, it is meant that it
pays to the king for seven hides.... The Burton cartulary, the
earliest survey after Domesday, employed the word 'wara' in
the same sense.

One cannot disprove the first proposition without reading through all
Domesday for this purpose. I can only say that I do not remember ever
meeting in Domesday Book with such an expression. The solitary instance
of its use known to me is in the Liber Niger of Peterborough (p. 159), where
we read: 'in Estona sunt iii. hidæ ad in Waram'; and there the relevant entry
in Domesday has no such expression. Of the statement as to the Burton
cartulary, one can positively say it is an error. Its 'waræ' have quite another
meaning and are spoken of as virgates would elsewhere be.

Collation with what I have termed the Northamptonshire geld-roll renders it
clear that 'wara', in Domesday, represents the old English word for 'defence',
in the sense of assessment, the 'defendit se' formula of the great Survey

leading even to the phrase of 'Defensio x. acrarum', for assessment to
Danegeld, which is found in the first volume of Fines published by the
Pipe-Roll Society.

XVI. THE DOMESDAY 'JURATORES'

I now approach the subject of the Domesday juratores.

The lists of these in the I.E. and in the I.C.C. afford priceless information.
The latter gives us the names for all but three of the Cambridgeshire
Hundreds, the former for all Cambridgeshire (one Hundred excepted) and
for three Hertfordshire Hundreds as well. The opening paragraph of the I.E.
tells us 'quomodo barones regis inquisierunt, videlicet per sacramentum
vicecomitis scire et omnium baronum et eorum francigenarum et tocius
centuriatus presbyteri prepositi vi. villani [sic] uniuscuiusque ville'.206
Careful reading of this phrase will show that the 'barones regis' must have
been the Domesday Commissioners. The difficulty is caused by the
statement as to the oaths of the sheriff, the tenants-in-chief (barones), and
their foreign (? military) under-tenants (francigenæ). The lists of juratores
contain the names of many francigenæ in their respective hundreds, but, so
far as I can find, of no tenants-in-chief. The sheriff, of course, stands apart.
His name indeed in the I.C.C. is appended to the list of jurors for the first
Hundred on the list, but is not found in the I.E. Moreover, it should be noted
that the above formula speaks of all the tenants-in-chief, but only of a single
Hundred court. Two hypotheses suggest themselves. The one, that the
sheriff and barones of the county made a circuit of the Hundreds, and then
handed in, on their oaths, to the commissioners a return for the whole
county; the other, that the circuit was made by the commissioners
themselves, attended by the sheriff and barones. In the former case it is
obvious that the commissioners would fail to obtain at first hand that direct
local information which it was their object to elicit: and further, when we
find the sheriff and barones charged with wrongdoing in these very returns,
it is, to say the least, improbable that they were their own accusers,
especially in the case of such a sheriff as Picot, at once dreaded and
unscrupulous.

It seems, therefore, the best conclusion that the Domesday commissioners
themselves attended every Hundred court, and heard the evidence,
sometimes conflicting, of 'French' and 'English'.207

The order in which the Hundreds occur must not be passed over, because
their sequence distinctly suggests a regular circuit of the country. Here is
the sequence given in our three authorities: the I.C.C., the I.E., and the list
of jurors prefixed to the latter:

Staplehow Staplehow Staplehow
Cheveley Cheveley Cheveley
Staines Staines Staines
Radfield Flammenditch Erningford
Flammenditch Childeford Triplow
Childerford Radfield Radfield
Whittlesford (208) Flammenditch
Triplow Triplow Whittlesford
Erningford Erningford Weatherley
Weatherley Weatherley Stow
Stow Stow Papworth
Papworth Papworth Northstow
Northstow Northstow Chesterton
Chesterton Ely
Ely

On comparing the first two of these lists it will be found that (except in the
case of three contiguous Hundreds, which does not affect the argument) the
Hundreds are taken in a certain sequence, which is seen, on reference to the
valuable map prefixed to Mr Hamilton's book, to represent a circuit of the
southern portion of the county from north-east to north-west, followed by
an inquest on the district to its north, the 'two Hundreds' of Ely.

The third list, on the other hand, misplaces the Hundreds of Triplow and
Erningford altogether, and wholly omits that of Childeford. The
transposition and omission are both notable evidence that the B and C texts,

as I shall urge, were derived from some common original which contained
these defects.

The essential point, however, is that a circuit was made of the county
whether merely by the sheriff, or, as seems most probable, by the
Domesday Commissioners themselves—the 'barones regis' of the record—
who must have attended the several Hundred-courts in succession.

But when we speak of the Hundred-court it is necessary to explain at once
that the body which gave evidence for the Domesday Inquest was of a
special and most interesting character. It combined the old centuriatus—
deputations of the priest, reeve, and six villeins from each township (villa)
—with the new settlers in the Hundred, the francigenæ. A careful
investigation of the lists will prove that half the juratores were selected
from the former and half from the latter. This fact, which would seem to
have been hitherto overlooked, throws a flood of light on the compilation of
the Survey, and admirably illustrates the King's policy of combining the old
with the new, and fusing his subjects, their rights and institutions, into one
harmonious whole. Conquerors and conquered were alike bound by their
common sworn verdicts.209

We have the lists, in all, for eighteen Hundreds, fifteen in Cambridgeshire
and three in Herts, of which two were 'double'. There were, practically, for
each Hundred exactly eight juratores, half of them 'French' and half
'English'. But the two 'double' Hundreds had sixteen each, half of them
'French' and half 'English'. Although it is recorded that 'alii omnes franci et
angli de hoc hundredo juraverunt', it is obvious that the eight men always
specially mentioned were, in a special degree, responsible for the verdict.
Their position is illustrated, I think, by the record of a Cambridgeshire
placitum found in the Rochester chronicles. This is the famous suit of
Bishop Gundulf against Picot the sheriff in the County Court of
Cambridgeshire,210 which affords a valuable instance of a jury being
elected to confirm by their oaths the (unsworn) verdict of the whole court:

Cum illis (i.e. omnes illius comitatus homines) Baiocensis
episcopus, qui placito præerat, non bene crederet; præcepit
ut, si verum esse quod dicebant scirent, ex seipsis duodecim

eligerent, qui quod omnes dixerant jure jurando
confirmarent.

Now we read of this jury:

Hi autem fuerunt Edwardus de Cipenham, Heruldus et
Leofwine saca de Exninge, Eadric de Giselham, Wlfwine de
Landwade, Ordmer de Berlincham, et alii sex de melioribus
comitatus.

Investigation shows that the names mentioned are local. The land in dispute
was a holding in Isleham in the Hundred of Staplehoe. One juror, Eadric,
came from Isleham itself, two from Exning, one from Chippenham, one
from Landwade, while the sixth, Ordmer, was an under-tenant of Count
Alan, in the Manor from which he took his name (Badlingham), and was a
Domesday juror for the Hundred. These six, then, were clearly natives
chosen for their local knowledge. The other six, chosen 'de melioribus
comitatus', were probably, as at the Domesday inquest, Normans (Franci).
Thus the double character of the jury would be here too preserved, and the
principle of testimony from personal knowledge upheld.

So again in the Dorset suit of St. Stephen's, Caen (1122),211 the men of
seven Hundreds are convened, but the suit is to be decided 'in affirmatione
virorum de quatuor partibus vicinitatis illius villæ'.212 Accordingly,
'sexdecim homines, tres videlicet de Brideport, et tres de Bridetona, et
decem de vicinis, juraverunt se veram affirmationem facturos de
inquisitione terræ illius'. The names of the jurors are carefully given:
'Nomina vero illorum qui juraverunt, hæc sunt'. Again in the same Abbey's
suit for lands in London, 'per commune consilium de Hustingo, secundum
præceptum regis, elegerunt quatuordecim viros de civibus civitatis
Londoniæ qui juraverunt'. And in this case also we read: 'Hæc sunt nomina
illorum qui juraverunt.... Et hæc sunt nomina eorum in quorum præsentia
juraverunt.'213

This corresponds, it will be seen, exactly with the writ to which the
Inquisitio Eliensis was, I hold, the return: 'Inquire ... qui eas (terras)
juraverunt et qui jurationem audierunt' (infra, p. 114).

Enough has now been said to show that the names of the Domesday jurors
recorded for each Hundred represent a jury of eight, elected to swear on
behalf of the whole Hundred, and composed of four foreigners and four
Englishmen, in accordance with the principle that the conflicting interests
ought to be equally represented.214

We may take, as a typical set of juratores, those for the Hundred of
Erningford, the survey of which, in Mr Hamilton's book, occupies pp. 51-
68. I give them in their order:

[Francigenæ] [Angli]
Walterus Monachus Colsuenus
Hunfridus de anseuilla Ailmarus eius filius
Hugo petuuolt Turolfus
Ricardus de Morduna Alfuuinus odesune

All four francigenæ can be identified in the Hundred. Walter held a hide
and a quarter in 'Hatelai' from the wife of Ralf Tailbois; Humfrey, a hide
and a quarter in 'Hatelai', from Eudo dapifer;215 Hugh, a hide and a half in
'Melrede', from Hardwin de Scalers; and Richard, three virgates in
'Mordune', from Geoffrey de Mandeville. Of the Angli, Colsuenus was
clearly Count Alan's under-tenant at three townships within the Hundred,
holding in all two hides; 'Ailmarus', his son, was, just possibly, the 'Almarus
de Bronna', who was a tenant of Count Alan in two adjacent townships,
holding two hides and three-eighths; 'Turolfus' and 'Alfuuinus' cannot be
identified, and were probably lower in the social scale.

It will be observed that Colsweyn belongs to a special class, the English
under-tenants. He is thus distinct at once from the Francigenæ, and from
the villeins of the township. He and his peers, however, are classed with the
latter as jurors, because they are both of English nationality. In the great
majority of cases the English juratores cannot be identified as under-
tenants, and may therefore be presumed to have belonged to the township
deputations.

XVII. THE 'INQUISITIO ELIENSIS'

The record known by this name has long been familiar to Domesday
students, but no one, so far as I know, has ever approached the questions:
Why was it compiled? When was it compiled? From what sources was it
compiled? These three questions I shall now endeavour to answer.

First printed by the Record Commission in their 'Additamenta' volume of
Domesday (1816), its editor, Sir Henry Ellis, selected for his text the most
familiar, but, as I shall show, the worst of its three transcripts (Cott. MS.,
Tib. A. VI), though he knew of what I believe to be the best, the Trin. Coll.
MS., O. 2, 1, which seems to be the one styled by him 68 B 2.216 In his
introduction he thus described it:

The Inquisitio Eliensis is a document of the same kind with
the Exeter Domesday; relating to the property of the
Monastery of Ely recorded afterwards in the two volumes of
the Domesday Survey (p. xiv).

From this it would seem that Ellis believed the Inquisitio, at any rate, to be
previous to Domesday Book, but he practically left its origin altogether in
doubt.

Sixty years later (1876) the Inquisitio was published anew, but without any
further solution of the points in question being offered.217 For this edition
three MSS. were collated, with praiseworthy and infinite pains, by Mr N. E.
S. A. Hamilton. Taking for his text, like Ellis, the Cottonian MS. Tib. A. VI,
which he distinguished as A, he gave in footnotes the variants found in the
MSS. at Trinity College, Cambridge, viz.: O. 2, 41 (which he termed B),
and O. 2, 1 (which he distinguished as C). In Mr Hamilton's opinion (p. xiv)
the 'C' text 'appears to have been derived from the "B" MS. rather than the
Cottonian' ('A'). From this opinion, it will be seen, I differ wholly.

A careful analysis of the three texts has satisfied me beyond question that
while C is the most accurate in detail, it is marred by a peculiar tendency to
omission on the part of its scribe. This, indeed, is its distinctive feature.
Now B cannot be derived from C, because it supplies the latter's omissions.

On the other hand, C cannot be derived from B, because it corrects,
throughout, B's inaccuracies. Consequently they are independent. More
difficult to determine is the genesis of A, the worst of the three texts; but as
it virtually reproduces all the inaccuracies found in B (besides containing
many fresh ones), without correcting any, it can only be inferred that B was
its source. Thus we have on the one hand C, and, on the other B (with its
offspring A), derived independently from some common source. And this
conclusion agrees well with the fact that a long catalogue of lands
abstracted from the House of Ely is found in C, but not in A or B,218 and
with the circumstance that the famous rubric ('Hic subscribitur inquisitio'),
which heads the inquisition in A and B, is placed by C at the end of the lists
of jurors.219

Starting from this conclusion, let us now proceed to ask, what was the
document from which B and C copied independently? Clearly, it was not
Domesday Book, for outside the eastern counties they record the returns in
full, like the Inq. Com. Cant. itself. Were they then taken from the original
returns, or at least from the copy of those returns in the Inq. Com. Cant.?
This point can only be determined by close analysis of the variants; if we
find B and C containing occasionally the same errors and peculiarities,
although copied independently, it follows that the document from which
they both copied must have contained those same errors and peculiarities.
Let us take the case of Papworth. The right reading, as given both in
Domesday and the Inq. Com. Cant., I have placed on the left, and the wrong
reading, in B and C, on the right:

[tenet abbas] ii. [tenet abbas] ii.
hidas et iii. virgas et hidas et dim. virgam
dim. [virgam]. et220 iii. virgas.

I. hida et i. virga et I. hida et dimidia
dimidia [virga] in virga et una virga221
dominio. in dominio.

Here are some further illustrations of errors in the I.E.:

D.B. and I.C.C. I.E.

VIII. hidas et VIII. hidis et dimidia
dimidiam et et dimidia virga ...
dimidiam virgam.... iii. hidæ et dimidia et
In dominio iii. hidæ dimidia virga in
et dimidia (p. 18). dominio (p. 104).

II. carruce in IIIIor. carruce ... in
dominio. Et tercia dominio.
potest fieri (p. 21).
I. hida et xii. acræ in
I. hida et dimidia et dominio (p. 110).
xii. acræ in dominio
(p. 87). Rod[bertus] tenet de
vicecomite (p. 110).
tenet Radulfus de
Picot (p. 85). Johannem filium
Walteri (p. 103).
Johannes filius
Waleranni (p. 27).

Again, the clause 'Tost222 pro viii. hidis et xl. acris', which ought to head the
Hardwick entries, is wrongly appended in the I.E. (p. 110) to a Kingston
entry with which it had nothing to do. So too, 'hoc manerium pro x. hidis se
defendit [sic] T.R.E. et modo pro viii. hidis', which belongs to Whaddon, is
erroneously thrown back by the I.E. (p. 107), into Trumpington, a Manor in
another Hundred. It is singular also that all the MSS. of the I.E. read 'iii.
cotarii' (p. 101), where D.B. and the I.C.C. have 'iii. bordarii' (p. 3), and 'x.
cotarii' (p. 101), where they have 'x. bordarii' (p. 6): conversely, the former,
in one place, read 'xv. bordarii' (p. 107), where the latter have 'xv. cotarii' (p.
63).

In comparing the text of the I.E. with that of the I.C.C., we shall find most
striking and instructive variants in the lists of juratores for the several

Hundreds. Take, for instance, the lists for the Hundreds of Cheveley and
Staines, which follow one another in both MSS.

I.C.C. I.E.

caueleie cauelai
223

Ric[ardus] Ric[ardus] prefectus
huius hundreti.
Euerard[us] filius Æduuard[us] homo
Brientii Alb[er]ici de uer
Radulfus de hotot Radulfus de hotot
Will[elmu]s de mara Will[elmu]s de mara
Stanhardus de Standard224 de
seuerlei seuerlaio
Frauuin[us] de Frawinus225 de
Curtelinga quetelinge226
Carolus de cauelei Carlo de cauelaio227
Brunesune
Vlmar[us] homo Wlmar' homo
Wigoni et o[mne]s Wighen228
alii franci et angli
juraverunt

The second name on these lists can be conclusively tested. For the relative
entry in the I.C.C. is 'Esselei tenet euerard[us]229 filius brientii de Alberico'.
This proves that the I.C.C. is right in reading 'Euerard[us]', while the I.E. is
right in adding 'homo Alb[er]ici de uer'.

These are the lists for Staines Hundred.

I.C.C. I.E.

stane stanas

Harold[us] Alerann[us]
Roger[us] Rogger[us] homo
Walt[er]i giffardi230
Aleranus francigena
Ric[ardus] fareman Ric[ardus]
p[ræ]fectus hui[us]
hundreti
Farmannus
Huscarl de Huscarlo de
suafham231 suafham231
Leofuuin[us] de Leofuuin[us]
bodischesham
Harald homo
Hard[uuini] de
scalariis
Alric[us] de Aluric[us] de
Wilburgeham et Wiburgeham et alii
omnes franci et omnes franci et angli
angli. de hoc hundreto.

In these two lists the points to strike us are that Harold is placed first on one
list and seventh on another; Aleran third on one list and first on another; and
'Fareman' distinguished more clearly in the I.E. than in the I.C.C. as a
separate individual.

If we now collect from the other Hundreds some instances of instructive
variants, we shall obtain important evidence.

I.C.C. I.E.
Rob[ertus] de Rob[er]tus
Fordham angli[cus] de
Fordham

Picotus vicecomes [Omitted]232
Walterus Monac[us] Walt[erus]233
Gerardus Lotaringus Girardus lotherensis
de salsintona
Herveus de salsitona
Pagan[us] homo Paganus dapifer
hardeuuini Hard'
Rad[ulfus] de Radulfus de bans234
scannis
Fulco Waruhel Fulcheus homo
vicecomitis
Rumold[us] de cotis Rumold homo
comitis Eustachio
Will[elmu]s Will[elmus] homo
picoti vice comitis
Wlwi de doesse Wlwi de etelaie
Godlid de stantona Godliue

I.C.C. I.E.

flamencdic flammingedich

Robert[us] de Rodb[er]t[us] de
Hintona Histona
Fulcard[us] de Osmundus parvus
Dittona
Osmund[us] Fulcold homo
parvulus abbatis de Ely
Baldeuuinus cum Baldeuuinus cocus
barba
Æduuin[us] Æduuinus presbyter
presbyter

Ulfric[us] de Wlfuric de
teuersham teuersham
Silac[us] eiusdem Syla
villæ
Godwun[us] Goduuine de
nabesone fulburne

It is impossible to examine the italicized variations in these parallel texts
without coming to the conclusion that they must have been independently
derived from some common original, an original containing more detail
than either of them. On the other hand, the comparatively close agreement
between the texts of the actual returns in the I.C.C. and the I.E. leads one to
infer that these were copied with far more exactitude than the comparatively
unimportant surnames of the jurors. For us the value of these variations in
the jurors' lists lies in the evidence afforded to the origin of the existing
MSS.

The object of this careful scrutiny has been to prove that as certain errors
and peculiarities are found in two independent MSS., they must have
existed in the original document from which both were copied, and which
was neither the I.C.C. transcripts nor the original Domesday returns. What
then was this document? It was, and can only have been, the true Inquisitio
Eliensis, the date and origin of which I shall discuss below. Further, I
should imagine this document to have probably been a roll or rolls, which—
on its contents being subsequently transcribed into a book for convenience
—was allowed, precisely as happened to the Domesday rolls themselves, to
disappear. In perfect accordance with this view we find the whole contents
of the Inquisitio arranged for a special purpose, and no mere transcript of
the Domesday returns. Thus, after abstracting all the entries relating to the
Cambridgeshire estates, and subjoining a list of houses held in Cambridge
itself, it proceeds to add up all the items independently, and record their
total values to the Abbey. This analysis is carried out for several counties
(pp. 121-4), and is, of course, peculiar to the Inquisitio, although inserted
between the abstracts of the Domesday returns for Cambridgeshire and
Herts. So too the breviate or short abstract of the estates (pp. 168-173),
which was part of the original document—for it is found in all the derived

MSS.—must have been specially compiled for it, and so also was the
Nomina Villarum (pp. 174-83).

Another peculiarity of the Inquisitio is the care with which it records the
names of sokemen on the Abbey estates when omitted in the I.C.C. and
D.B. This may lead us to ask whether its compilers supplied these names
from their personal knowledge. We might think not, for in some cases they
are recorded by the D.B. and the I.C.C., while in one (p. 106) the I.E.
actually omits the name, reading only 'quidam sochemanus', where the other
two documents (p. 46) supply his name ('Fridebertus'). From this we might
infer that the names were probably recorded in the original returns, but
deemed of too slight importance to be always copied by the transcriber. Yet
the balance of evidence leads me to believe that the I.E. did supply names
from independent knowledge. With the values, however, the case is clearer.
The I.E. contains special and exclusive information on the value of socman-
holdings, and must, I think, have derived it from some other source than the
original Domesday returns. Here are some instances in point.

I.C.C. I.E.
III. sochemanni In Erningetone fuit
fuerunt ... secundus quidam
homo abbatis de Ely sochemannus,
tenuit ii.235 hidas ... Ædwardus, et habuit
Potuerunt recedere i. hidam. Homo
(p. 83). abbatis Eli fuit in
obitu regis Ædwardi,
sed terram suam
vendere potuit; sed
soca semper S.
Ædeldrede remansit
(p. 110).
In Ouro fuit quidam
X. sochemanni ... et sochemannus
i. istorum homo nomine Standardus,
abbatis de Ely fuit. qui dimidiam hidam
Dimidiam hidam habuit sub abbate

habuit. Non potuit ely. Non potuit ire ab
dare neque vendere, eo nec separare ab
et ii. istorum, ecclesia et valet
homines predicti viginti solidos. Et
abbatis, iii. virgas modo habet
habuerunt, vendere Hardwinus. Et alii ii.
potuerunt; soca sochemanni iii.
remansit abbati (p. virgatas habuerunt.
91). Potuerunt dare vel
vendere sine soca cui
voluerunt et modo
tenet Hardwinus. Et
valet xv. solidos (p.
112).
Et xus Quidam
[sochemannus] sochemannus sub
homo abbatis de ely abbate eli i. hidam et
fuit. i. hidam et dim. dim. tenuit T.R.E.
habuit. Et omnes isti potuit dare sine
recedere potuerunt; licentiam [sic] eius,
et vendere terram sine socha. Et modo
suam cui voluerunt Picot vicecomes
(p. 95). tenet eam sub abbate
ely. Valet x. sol. (p.
113).

This last passage, of itself, is full of instruction. Firstly, the I.E. alone gives
the value of the holding. Secondly, the I.E. preserves the 'sine socha' which
qualifies the holder's right. Now D.B. gives the last clause as:

Hi omnes terras suas vendere potuerunt. Soca tantum
hominis abbatis de Ely remansit æcclesiæ.

This qualification corresponds with the 'sine socha' of the I.E., and is, we
should observe, wholly omitted in the I.C.C. Thirdly, the three versions of
the original return employ three different words to express the same one
—'recedere', 'vendere', 'dare'. Fourthly, the superiority of the C text of the

I.E. over B (which makes two blunders in this passage) and of B over its
offspring A (which adds a third) is here well illustrated. Fifthly, the phrase
'Picot vicecomes tenet eam sub abbate ely' differs notably from Domesday,
which assigns the estate to Picot unreservedly, and still more from the
I.C.C. which reads 'tenet Robertus de Picoto vicecomite in feudo regis'.

The next example is taken from the township immediately preceding.

I.C.C. I.E.
V. istorum Fuerunt quinque
(sochemannorum) sochemani T.R.E.
homines abbatis de unus istorum sugga
Ely fuerunt. Et unus nomine habuit una
istorum i. virg. et virg. et dim. sub
dim. habuit. Non abbate ely. Non
potuit recedere. Et potuit recedere. Et
alii iiii. habuerunt v. valet x. sol. Et alii
hidas et i. virg. iiiior sochemani v.
Potuerunt recedere hidas et i. virg.
sine soca (p.95). tenuerunt de abbate
eli. Potuerunt dare
preter licentiam
abbatis et sine socha
et modo tenet eam
Picot vicecomes de
abbate ely et valet
iii. lib. (p. 112).

I have said that in all these cases it might perhaps be held that the additional
details found in the I.E. were not due to special information possessed by its
compilers, but were derived from the original returns, though omitted by
their other transcribers. It is possible, however, to put the matter to the test.
If, anticipating for a moment, we find that we have, for the eastern counties,
in Domesday the actual materials from which the compilers of the I.E.
worked, we can assert that any additional details must have been supplied

from their own knowledge. An excellent instance in point is afforded by
Tuddenham, in Suffolk:

D.B. I.E.
In Tudenham
Geroldus i. lib' In Tudenham i. li.
hominem ... comend' homo Ælfric'
Saxæ de abbate commend' S. Ædel'
T.R.E. xii. ac' pro xii. ac' et iii. b. et i.
man', iii. bord' Semp' c. et iii. ac' prati et
i. car. ii. ac' prati ... val. viginiti iii. s.
val. iii. sol.; et in
eadem ii. liberi In eadem i. l. ho'
homines comend' i. hedric'236 commend'
sancte Æ. et alter S. Ædel' viii. ac' et
comend' heroldi x. val' xx. den. Hoc
ac', et dim. car. et tenet R. de Raimes
val. ii. sol. Hoc tenet (p. 151).
Geroldus de R. [de
Raimes] (ii. 423b).

One knows not, truly, which blunder is the worst, that of the Domesday
scribe, who has converted a probable 'S. æ',237 i.e. Ely Abbey, into 'Saxæ',
or that of the compiler of the I.E., who, by interpolating the word 'viginti',
has converted three shillings into three-and-twenty. But the point is that the
latter could name the Abbot's sokeman (nameless in Domesday) and could
supply his acreage and the value of his holding. The actual details seem to
have been:

Acres Pence
Abbot's sokeman 8 20
Harold's sokeman 2 4
——————
10 24

Domesday records the totals only.

Enough has now been said of the twelfth century transcripts in which alone
are preserved to us the contents of the Inquisitio. We have seen that they
point to the existence of some common original, which, while closely
parallel with Domesday, as a record of the Abbey's possessions, contained
certain special features and additional information. Why, when, and from
what sources that original was compiled, I shall now endeavour to explain.

XVIII. THE ELY RETURN

The theory I propound for the origin of the so-called Inquisitio Eliensis is
that it was the actual return ordered by that writ of the Conqueror,238 of
which a copy is given in all three MSS. (A, B, C) and which is printed in
Mr Hamilton's book, on p. xxi (No. VIII). I give the wording of the writ,
followed by the heading to the Inquisitio with which it should be closely
compared.

Willelmus Rex Anglorum Lanfranco archiepiscopo
salutem.... Inquire per episcopum Constantiensem et per
episcopum Walchelinum et per ceteros qui terras sanctæ
Ædeldrede scribi et jurari fecerunt, quomodo jurate fuerunt
et qui eas juraverunt, et qui jurationem audierunt, et qui sunt
terre, et quante, et quot, et quomodo vocate [et] qui eas
tenent. His distincte notatis et scriptis fac ut cite inde rei
veritatem per tuum breve sciam. Et cum eo veniat legatus
abbatis.

Return

Hic subscribitur inquisicio terrarum, quomodo barones regis
inquisierunt,239 videlicet per sacramentum vicecomitis scire
et omnium baronum et eorum francigenarum, et tocius
centuriatus, presbiteri, prepositi, vi. villani [sic]

uniuscujusque ville; deinde quomodo vocatur mansio, quis
tenuit eam tempore R.E., quis modo tenet, quot hide, quot
carruce240 in dominio, quot hominum, quot villani, quot
cotarii, quot servi, quot liberi homines, quot sochemanni,
quantum silve, quantum prati, quot241 pascuorum, quot
molendina, quot piscine, quantum est additum vel ablatum,
quantum valebat totum simul,242 et quantum modo, quantum
quisque liber homo vel sochemannus habuit vel habet. Hoc
totum tripliciter, scilicet tempore regis Æduardi, et quando
Rex Willelmus dedit et qualiter modo sit, et si potest plus
haberi quam habeatur.

Isti homines juraverunt, etc., etc.

Especially important is the fact that the return contains the jurors' names, in
accordance with the express injunction to that effect in the Conqueror's
writ.

Now if this theory meet with acceptance, and the writ be taken to refer, as I
suggest, to the Domesday Inquest itself, it follows that the Bishop of
Coutances and Bishop Walchelin were the heads of the Domesday
Commission for this district. This, of course, has been hitherto unknown;
but it adds to the presumption in favour of the facts that Bishop Walchelin is
not mentioned in any of the Ely writs as taking part in the placita
concerning the Abbey's lands, and that, therefore, the only Inquest in which
he could have been concerned was the Domesday Inquest itself. It should be
added, however, that these two Bishops may have been, respectively, the
heads of two distinct commissions for adjoining groups of counties.

The heading to the Inquisitio Eliensis is so well known, and has been so
often quoted by historians, that it is a gain to fix its status, the more so as it
has been loosely described as the 'official' instructions for the Survey itself.
We may also determine the date of the writ as the very close of the
Conqueror's reign. For it must have been issued between William's
departure from England, circ. September 1086, and his death (September
1087).

And now, how was the return compiled? It deals, we find, with six counties,
arranged in this order: Cambridgeshire, Herts, Essex, Norfolk, Suffolk, and
Hunts. For Cambridgeshire it copies, clearly, from the original returns. For
Herts it must have done so also, because it gives full details, which are not
found in Domesday Book. This conclusion is confirmed by the fact that, for
these two counties, it gives the jurors' names (for the hundreds dealt with),
which it could only have obtained from those original returns. For Essex,
Norfolk, and Suffolk, on the contrary, it simply gives the same version as the
second volume of Domesday Book, and omits accordingly the jurors'
names. The case of the four Manors in Hunts I leave in doubt, because the
version in the Inquisitio (pp. 166-7) has more details than that of
Domesday, though the latter is here exceptionally full, and because it places
first the Manor which comes fourth in Domesday (i. 204). The additional
details (as to live-stock) are such as we might expect to be derived from the
additional returns; but the names of the witnesses for the Hundred are not
recorded, a fact to be taken in conjunction with the belated entry of these
Huntingdonshire Manors not following, as they should, those in
Cambridgeshire and Herts.

In addition to the Inquisitio itself, as printed by the Record Commission,
there is a record, or collection of records, which follows it in all three MSS.,
and which is printed in Mr Hamilton's book (pp. 168-89). Although its
character is not there described, it can be determined. For in the Inquisitio
there are three references to the 'breve abbatis de ely' (pp. 123-4), all three
of which can be identified in the above record (pp. 175-7). It is noteworthy
that the record in question is only complete in C, which confirms my view
that B and its offspring A were independent of C.

Though the word Breve in Domesday Book normally means the king's writ,
there are passages which seem to have been overlooked, and in which it
bears another and very suggestive meaning. One of them is found at the end
of the Survey of Worcestershire and was foolishly supposed by the
compilers of the index volume (pp. 250, 315) to relate to lands held by
'Eddeva' and entered immediately before it. The passage is an independent
note, running thus:

In Esch Hund' jacent x. hidæ in Fecheham et iii. hidæ in
Holewei et scriptæ sunt in brevi de Hereford.

In Dodintret Hund' jacent xiii. hidæ de Mertelai et v. hidæ
de Suchelei quæ hic placitant et geldant, et ad Hereford
reddunt firmam suam, et sunt scriptæ in breve regis (i. 178).

All four places are found on fo. 180b, 'Feccheham' and 'Haloede' [sic]243
together (under 'Naisse' Hundred244) as paying a joint ferm—'Merlie'
(Martley) under 'Dodintret' Hundred and Suchelie (Suckley), now in
Herefordshire, as 'in Wirecestrescire' (cf. i. 172).

It is clear then that Domesday here uses 'breve' of a return, not of a writ, and
I venture to think the word may refer to the abbreviated entries made in
Domesday Book itself as distinct from those in extenso found in the original
returns.245

This usage is found in both volumes. We read of land at Marham, Norfolk,
held by Hugh de Montfort; 'est mensurata in brevi Sanctæ Adeldret' (ii.
238), where the reference is to the 'Terra Sanctæ Adeldredræ' (ii. 212), and
of Hurstington Hundred, Hunts, 'Villani et sochemanni geldant secundum
hidas in brevi scriptas' (i. 203). The reference, in both cases, is to the text
itself.

The former of these two phrases is repeated in the Inquisitio Eliensis,246 a
fact of some importance if, as I venture to think, it is there meaningless. The
point is worth labouring. We see that the phrase cannot have occurred in the
original returns, where all the entries relating to Marham would have come
together. But if it was only applicable to Domesday Book itself—where the
fiefs were separated—then must the I.E. have copied from Domesday Book.

This, indeed, is the point to which I am working. For Essex, Norfolk, and
Suffolk, I believe, the compilers of the Inquisitio (1086-7) must have
worked from the second volume of Domesday as we have it now. We see it
firstly, in the order of the counties; secondly, in the absence of the jurors'
names; thirdly, in the system of entering the lands. With a fourth and minute
test I have dealt just above.

But to make this clearer, we must briefly analyse the return. The
Cambridgeshire portion extends from p. 101 to p. 120. It extracts from the
original returns, Hundred by Hundred, all that relates to the Abbey of Ely.
Following this is a note of its possessions in the Borough of Cambridge247
(pp. 120-1), and then summaries of the Abbey's estates, in dominium and
thainland and socha, in all six counties, and of the lands held by Picot the
Sheriff, Hardwin d'Eschalers and Guy de Raimbercurt, to which it laid
claim as its own (pp. 121-4). Then we resume with Hertfordshire, the
extracts from the original returns (pp. 124, 125). Both the Cambridgeshire
and Hertfordshire portions close with the words, 'De toto quod habemus',
etc., referring to the totals worked out by the Abbey from the entries in the
original returns.

With Essex, we enter at once on a different system. This portion, which
extends from p. 125 to p. 130 (line 8), is arranged not by Hundreds but by
fiefs. It first gives the lands actually held by the Abbey (as coming first in
Domesday), and then those of which laymen were in possession. To the
latter section are prefixed the words: 'Has terras calumpniatur abbas de ely
secundum breve regis'. From Essex we pass to Norfolk, the entries for
which, commencing on p. 130 with the words 'In Teodforda', end on p. 141
at 'Rogerus filius Rainardi'. These again are divided into two portions,
namely, the lands credited to the Abbey in Domesday (pp. 130-6), and those
which it claimed but which Domesday enters under other owners (pp. 137-
41). Between the two comes the total value of the former portion and a list
of the Norfolk churches held by the Abbey. Last of the Eastern counties is
Suffolk, which begins on p. 141 at 'In Tedeuuartstreu hund.', and ends on p.
166. This also is in two portions, but the order seems to be reversed, the
alleged aggressions on the Abbey's lands coming first and its uncontested
possessions last. The latter portion begins on p. 153, where the B text
inserts the word 'Sudfulc'.

The following parallel passages are of interest as showing how closely the
I.E. followed D.B. even when recording a judicial decision.

D.B. I.E.

In dermodesduna In dermodesduna
tenuerunt xxv. liberi tenuerunt xxv. lib.
homines i car. terræ homines i car. terre
ex quibus habuit sca. ex quibus habuit S.
Al. commend. et Ædel. sacam et
socam T.R.E. Tunc socam et commend.
vi. car. modo ii., et T.R.E. Tunc vi. car.
iii. acre prati, et val. modo ii., et iii. acre
xx. sol. Rogerus prati, et val. xx. sol.
bigot[us] tenet de R. bigot tenet de
abbate, quia abbas Abbate quia Abbas
eam derationavit eam dirationavit
super eum coram super eum coram
episcopo de sancto episcopo
Laudo, sed prius constantiensi. Sed
tamen tenebat de prius tamen tenuit de
rege (ii. 383). rege (p. 157).

The one variation, the Bishop's style, has a curious parallel in Domesday
Book (i. 165), where under the rubric 'Terra Episcopi Constantiensis' we
read 'Episcopus de Sancto Laudo tenet', etc.

We may take it then that the compilers of the Inquisitio Eliensis worked for
Cambridge and Herts from the original returns, but, for the eastern counties,
from the second volume of Domesday. What are the corollaries of this
conclusion? They used, for some reason or other, the second volume of
Domesday, but not the first—if, indeed, it then existed. Speaking for
myself, I have always felt not a little uneasy as to the accepted date for the
completion of Domesday Book.248 Mr Eyton went so far as to write:

Imperial orders have gone forth that the coming Codex, the
Domesday that is to outlive centuries, is to be completed
before Easter (April 5th, in that year [1086]), when King
William himself expects to receive it in his Court and Palace
of Winchester (Notes on Domesday, 15).

And he explicitly stated that:

On any hypothesis as to the time taken by the different
processes which resulted in Domesday Book, the whole, that
is the survey, the transcription, and the codification, were
completed in less than eight months, and three of the eight
were winter months. No such miracle of clerkly and
executive capacity has been worked in England since.249

But was it worked then? All that the chronicle says of the King is that the
'gewrita wæran gebroht to him', a phrase which does not imply more than
the original returns themselves.

Of course, the chief authority quoted is the colophon to the second volume:

Anno millesimo octogesimo sexto ab incarnatione Domini
vicesimo vero regni Willelmi facta est ipsa descriptio non
solum per hos tres comitatus sed etiam per alios.

It seems to have been somewhat hastily concluded that because the Survey
('Descriptio Angliæ') took place in 1086, Domesday Book (which styles
itself Liber de Wintonia), was completed in that year. The phrase 'per hos
tres comitatus' proves, surely, that 'descriptio' refers to the Survey, not to the
book.250

I have never seen any attempt at a real explanation of the great difference
both in scope and in excellence between the two volumes, or indeed any
reason given why the Eastern counties should have had a volume to
themselves. For a full appreciation of the contrast presented by the two
volumes, the originals ought to be examined. Such differences as that the
leaves of one are half as large again as those of other, and that the former is
drawn up in double, but the latter in single column, dwarf the comparatively
minor contrasts of material and of handwriting. So, too, the fullness of the
details in the second volume may obscure the fact of its workmanship being
greatly inferior to that of the first. Of its blunders I need only give one
startling instance. The opening words of the Suffolk Survey, written in bold
lettering, are 'Terra Regis de Regione' (281b). I have no hesitation in saying
that the last words should be 'de Regno'. Indeed, the second formula is
found on 289b, as 'Terra Regis de Regno', while on 119b under 'Terra

Regis', we read 'hoc manerium fuit de regno'. So also in the Exon
Domesday 'Terra Regis' figures as 'Dominicatus regis ad regnum
pertinens'.251 The muddled order of the tenants-in-chief for Norfolk and for
Suffolk—where laymen precede the church252 —is another proof of
inferiority, but only minute investigation could show the hurry or ignorance
of the scribes.

Now, all this might, I think, be explained if we took the so-called second
volume to be really a first attempt at the codification of the returns. Its
unsatisfactory character must have demonstrated the need for a better
system, which, indeed, its unwieldy proportions must have rendered
imperative. So drastic and so successful, on this hypothesis, was the reform,
that while these three counties had needed a volume of 450 folios, the rest
of England that was surveyed—some thirty counties—was compressed into
a single volume of 382 folios, and on a system which rendered consultation
easier and more rapid. In every respect the first volume is a wonderful
improvement on the second, but the authorities may have shrunk from
ordering the latter to have been compiled de novo, when the work, though
unsatisfactory, had once been done.

This, it must of course be remembered, is all hypothesis, a hypothesis
suggested by the facts. If it were proved that at the time when the Ely return
was made, the 'second' volume had been compiled, and the 'first' had not, I
should have established my case. But it might be urged that the 'first'
volume did exist at the time, and that the Ely scribes used the returns
instead, because they contained fuller information. To this I reply, so far as
the details of the estates are concerned, that neither the terms of the writ nor
the heading of the Inquisitio involved the inclusion of such details as
Domesday Book omitted. If the scribes inserted them, it must have been
merely because they inserted everything they found in the records from
which they copied. It might still be urged that they went to the returns for
the names of the juratores; but why, if so, did they not do so for the three
eastern counties? It certainly seems to me to be the most satisfactory
explanation that the materials supplied for compiling this return, as being
the recognized official records, were the so-called 'second' volume of
Domesday, and (for the rest) the original returns.

XIX. FIRST MENTION OF DOMESDAY BOOK

No one nowadays should require to be told that the pseudo-Ingulf's dealings
with Domesday are devoid of all authority. Some, however, may still
believe in the tale found in that 'Continuatio' of his chronicle which is
fathered on Peter of Blois. It is there that Ellis found (putting Ingulf aside)
the only case of an appeal to its witness before the reign of John.253

With the 'Continuatio' I shall deal below,254 but I would observe, while on
the subject, that the 'pseudo-Ingulf' (charters and all) was, I believe, largely
concocted by the help of hints gathered from Domesday Book.

The absence of any authoritative mention, in its early days, of our great
record gives a special importance to an entry in the Chronicle of Abingdon
(ii. 115-6), where we read that Abbot Faritius was impleaded by certain
men:

Sed is abbas in castello Wincestre coram episcopis Rogero
Saresberiensi, et Roberto Lincolniensi, et Ricardo
Londoniensi, et multis regis baronibus, ratiocinando ostendit
declamationem eorum injustam esse. Quare, justiciarorum
regis judicio obtinuit ut illud manerium, etc. ... sed quia rex
tunc in Normanniâ erat, regina, quæ tunc præsens erat,
taliter hoc sigillo suo confirmavit.

Then follows the Queen's writ, announcing the decision of the plea held in
the royal 'Curia', together with the names of the 'barons' present. These
names enable us to determine a certain limit for the date of the plea.
'Thurstinus Capellamus', for instance, implies that it was previous to his
obtaining the See of York in 1114, while the presence of Richard, Bishop of
London, places it subsequent to July 26, 1108. It must, therefore, have been
held during the King's absence between July 1108 and the end of May 1109;
or in his later absence from August 1111 to the summer of 1113.

The action of the Queen in presiding over this placitum illustrates a
recognized practice, of which we have an instance in Domesday itself (i.
238b), where it is stated that Bishop Wulfstan, 'terram deplacitasse coram

regina Mathilde in presentia iiiior. vicecomitatuum'. The Queen's description
of the Curia Regis as 'curia domini mei et mea' should be compared with
the phrase employed by the Queen of Henry II, who, similarly acting in her
husband's absence, speaks of the Great Justiciar as 'Justicia Regis et mea'.

But the essential portion of the passage before us is this:

Sciatis quod Faritius abbas de Abendona in curia domini mei
et mea, apud Wintoniam in thesauro ... per Librum de
Thesauro, diratiocinavit quod, etc.

The court was held 'in castello Wincestre', says the narrative, 'apud
Wintoniam in thesauro', says the record. Both are right, for the Royal
Treasury was in Winchester Castle.255

But what was the 'Liber de Thesauro'? I contend that it was Domesday
Book, and can have been nothing else. For, passing now to the Dialogus de
Scaccario (circa 1177), we there read in reply to an inquiry as to the nature
of Domesday Book (which 'in thesauro servatur et inde non recedit'): 'liber
ille de quo quæris sigilli regii comes est individuus in thesauro' (I. XV.).
The connection of the Book with the Treasury is brought out strongly in the
Dialogus, and leads to the presumption, as Mr Hall perceived, that the
Treasury being originally at Winchester, the Book was there also—as
indeed we see it was under Henry I.256 On the date of its removal to
Westminster, there has been much discussion between my friend Mr Hall
and myself.257 Mr Hall relies mainly on the Dialogus de Scaccario, and on
the inferences he draws from it, for the early removal of Domesday to
Westminster, and the establishment there of the royal Treasury. For myself,
I claim for the Winchester Treasury greater importance and continuity than
he is willing to admit. The leading records, of course, were stored there as
well as treasure. We find William Rufus speaking of 'meis brevibus ... qui
sunt in thesauro mea Wyntoniæ';258 and we read that, on his father's death,
'pergens apud Wincestre thesaurum patris sui ... divisit: erant autem in
thesauro illo lx. m[ille] libræ argenti excepto auro et gemmis et vasis et
palliis.'259 Heming's Cartulary describes the Domesday returns as stored 'in
thesauro regali', and Henry of Huntingdon states that 'inter thesauros
reposita usque hodie servantur'.260 Now, as the Treasury was in Winchester

Castle at the time of the above suit, and as it had been in 1100261 and 1087,
so it was still at the accession of Stephen in 1135, and at the triumph of
Matilda in 1141. This is absolutely certain from the Chronicles, nor do they
ever mention any other Treasury. Moreover, the contents of this Treasury in
1135—'erant et vasa tam aurea quam argentea'—correspond with those
described by the Dialogus forty years later: 'vasa diversi generis aurea et
argentea'. Lastly, there is a piece of evidence which has not yet been
adduced, namely, that in his Expugnatio Hibernica (1188), Giraldus,
speaking of that ring and letters which John of Salisbury declared had been
brought by him from the Pope, and were 'still stored in the Royal Treasury',
writes of

Annulum aureum in investituræ signum ... qui statim simul
cum privilegio in archivis Wintoniae repositus fuerat.

Giraldus certainly must have looked on the Royal Treasury at Winchester as
the only recognized repository for all such objects as these.

Mr Hall, indeed, has gradually modified his original position that 'Ingulphus
saw the Domesday register, as it now exists, at Westminster', and that it was
sent there for good from Winchester 'early in the reign of Henry I',262 but he
still places the establishment of 'the' Treasury at Westminster, in my
opinion, too early. It is the gradual decay of Winchester as the capital and
seat of administration that makes it difficult to say positively when or how
the national records, Domesday Books among them, were transferred to
Westminster. We have seen at least that, in its early days, the 'Liber de
Wintonia', as it styles itself, had its home within the walls of the Royal
castle of Winchester; and I cannot but think, now as at first, that it began by
visiting Westminster for Exchequer sessions only.263

In any case, we have seen its witness appealed to on a far earlier occasion
than had hitherto been known. In my paper on 'An Early Reference to
Domesday',264 I quoted an even earlier mention of the 'Descriptio Angliæ',
but here again the reference seems to make rather to the Domesday Survey
itself than to Domesday Book, the 'Liber de Thesauro'.

As an appendix to this paper, I give the pedigree of the Domesday MSS.
according to the views I have expressed.265

266

1 English Commonwealth, II, ccccxliv.

2 Ibid.

3 Domesday Book, p. 42.

4 Athenæum, 1885, I, 472, 566-7; Domesday Book, 1887, p. 44.

5 Domesday Studies (1891), II, 488.

6 Inquisitio Comitatus Cantabrigiensis Cura N. E. S. A. Hamilton, 1876.

7 Notes on Domesday (1877), reprinted 1880, p. 15.

8 The italics are his own, Domesday Book, p. 42. Cf. Domesday Studies, II, 486-7.

9 It is not even proved that the I.C.C. is copied from the original returns themselves. There is the possibility of a MS.
between the two. See Addenda.

10 These extracts are extended and punctuated to facilitate the comparison. Important extensions are placed within
square brackets.

11 Curiously enough, the cases in which the I.C.C. does really supplement the Domesday version, that is, in the
names of the holders T.R.E. and of the under-tenants T.R.W., were left unnoticed by Mr Hamilton.

12 The references to pages are to those of Mr Hamilton's edition. The portions within the square brackets are the
passages omitted.

13 In this instance the omission is so gross that it attracted Mr Hamilton's notice. He admits in a footnoteid that his
MS. 'confounds two separate entries'. It would, however, be more correct to say that the MS. here omits a portion of
each. It is easy to see how the scribe erroneously 'ran on' from the first portion of one entry to the second portion of
another. This entry has a further value, for while D.B. convicts the I.C.C. of omitting the words 'de Widone', it is
itself convicted, by collation, of omitting the entry, 'Terra est i. bovi'.

14 The I.C.C. here wholly omits one of the three holdings T.R.E. 'The three hides and a virgate', at which the estate
was assessed, were thus composed: (1) three virgates held by Huscarl, (2) a hide and a virgate held by Eadgyth, (3) a
hide and a virgate held by Wulfwine, her man. It is this last holding which is omitted. Note here that the Domesday
'hide' is composed as ever (pace Mr Pell) of four virgates.

15 'i. caruce [ibi terra] et est caruca.'

16 'Ita quod [non potuit] dare vel vendere' (p. 50).

17 'Potuerunt [recedere] qua parte voluerunt'—p. 62 (Mr Hamilton noticed this omission).

18 'Sed [soca] eius remansit ædiue' (p. 61).

19 'Tenet [Odo] de comite Alano' (p. 15).

20 'Soca tantum hominis abbatis de Ely remansit æcclesiæ' (D.B.); 'sine socha' (I.E.).

21 The latter is the reading of D.B., and is the right one because confirmed by I.E.

22 This, like the similar cases where D.B. is given as the authority for the second reading, is proved arithmetically
(vide infra).

23 The I.C.C. enumerates only three, which is the number given in D.B.

24 The words 'quendam ortum' had occurred just before, and are here wrongly repeated.

25 'Inter totum valent et valuerunt xii. den.' This was exclusive of the value of the Manor, which by the way the
I.C.C. gives as sixteen pounds and D.B. at six pounds, one of those cases of discrepancy which have to be left in
doubt, though D.B. is probably right.

26 Mr Eyton, in his Notes on Domesday (p. 16), called attention to this. 'The result,' he wrote (of the Lincolnshire
Domesday), 'as to arrangement, is in certain instances just what might have been expected from some haste of
process.... The hurried clerks were perpetually overlooking entries which they ought to have seen.'

27 Mr Eyton (Ibid., pp. 17, 18), while ignoring this valuable and most important feature, notes the employment of a
similar device in Domesday Book itself in the case of Yorkshire. 'Against such errors and redundancies a very simple
but effective precaution seems to have been adopted by some clerk or clerks employed on the Yorkshire notes.
Before transcription was commenced an index was made of the loose notes of that county. This index gave the
contents of each Wapentac or Liberty in abstract under the appropriate title; then the measure in carucates and
bovates of each item of estate; and lastly (interlined) some hint or indication to whose Honour or fief each item
belonged. This most clerkly device will have saved the subsequent transcribers much trouble of roll-searching and a
world of confusion in their actual work.'

28 'Warra jacet in trompintona, et terra in grantebrigga.'

29 To say that the sokeman 'non potuerunt recedere sed soca remanebat abbati', is nonsense, because if they were not
able 'recedere', the question of 'soca' could not arise. The formula 'sed soca', etc., is only used in cases where there
was a right 'recedere'.

30 In this case the 'n[on]' has been added by interlineation.

31 The meaning, I think, is clear, though badly expressed, 'alias' being, seemingly, put for 'illas'.

32 This error arose thus: The original return (see I.C.C.) ran: 'De his v. hidis' (i.e. in 'Campes') tenet Normannus de
Alberico dimidiam hidam.' The Domesday scribe read this hurriedly as implying that Norman's half hide was part of
Aubrey's estate here (two and a half hides), whereas it was reckoned and entered as a separate estate.

33 Proved by collation with I.C.C. and I.E., which agree with each other.

34 Notes on Domesday, p. 16.

35 Domesday Studies, pp. 227-363, 561-619.

36 'Domesday Measures of Land' (Archæological Review, September 1889; iv, 130).

37 Domesday Studies, 188, 354.

38 'vi. carucis ibi est terra'. See Addenda.

39 Compare the equivalent tenure recognized in William of Poitier's charter to Bayonne: 'Le voisin qui voulait
abandonner la cité sans esprit de retour avait le droit de vendre librement tout ce qu'il possédait maisons, prairies,
vergers, moulins.'

40 We have three separate statements (of which more anon) of the aggressions of these three men on the Abbey's
lands. Taking the one printed on pp. 175-7 of Mr Hamilton's book, we find that of the twelve estates grasped by
Hardwin, all but one or two can be identified as the subject of duplicate entries in Domesday. (A disputed hide and a
half in 'Melrede', though not mentioned in this list, is also entered in duplicate.) But neither of the estates seized by
Guy de Raimbercurt is so entered in Domesday. The first two of those which Picot is accused of abstracting are
entered in duplicate, but not the following ones. There is one instance of a duplicate entry of another character,
relating to half a virgate (D.B., i, 199, b, 2, gives it erroneously as half a hide, but D.B., i, 190, a, 1, rightly as half a
virgate), which Picot, as sheriff had regained for the king against the 'invading' Aubrey.

41 The I.E. adds 'sub abbate ely' in each case, but is, from its nature, here open to suspicion.

42 This is not always the case. At Whaddon, for instance, the entry under Hardwin's land is the fuller. It is
noteworthy also that in this case the later entry (i. 198, b, 1) is referred to ('Hæc terra appreciata est cum terra
Hardwini') in the earlier one (i. 191, a, 2).

43 This same change of phrase is repeated four times on two pages (pp. 4, 5).

44 So, for instance:

'de appulatione navis' (I.C.C.) = 'de theloneo retis' (D.B.).
'ferarum siluaticarum' (I.C.C.) = 'bestiarum siluaticarum' (D.B.).
'silua ad sepes refici.' (I.C.C.) = 'nemus ad claud. sepes' (D.B.).
45 Compare the I.C.C. version on p. 100, infra.

46 Inq. Com. Cant., pp. xviii, xix.

47 'Et dimidiam' [hidam] is omitted in B, and (oddly enough) in Domesday itself.

48 All three MSS. err here, as the reading should clearly be 'dim. virg.'

49 b. 65. This distinction between the one and the nine, but not the size of the holding, is preserved in D.B.; while
the I.E., though preserving it, gives the numbers as two and eight.

50 This is the I.E. and D.B. version. For 'extra ecclesiam', the I.C.C. substitutes 'sine ejus [abbatis] licentia'.

51 'Soca remansit abbati' is the D.B. and I.E. version. It should be noted that the I.E. and Breve Abbatis give
'herchenger pistor' as the despoiler, while the I.C.C. and D.B. record him only as a 'miles' of Picot the sheriff. This is
a case which certainly suggests special local knowledge in the compiler of the former documents, who also gives the
sokeman's name—Siward.

52 Thus 'In Branmmeswelle ... lxx. liberi homines unde abbas habuit sacam et socam et commendatio et omnes
consuetudines ... In eadem villa iiii. liberi homines* unde abbas habuit sacam et socam et commendationem' (p.
161).
* 'Commend' abbati' (D.B., ii 387 b).

53 Inq. Com. Cant., 192-5. see paper on it, infra.

54 'In soca et commendatione abbatis de eli' (D.B., ii. 441).

55 'Soca et commendatione tantum' (D.B.).

56 'iiii. liberi homines soca et commendatione tantum' (D.B.).

57 'T.R.E. ad socham' (D.B.).

58 'Recep'' (D.B., ii. 238).

59 The Breve Abbatis records 34.

60 Ibid., 7.

61 I.C.C., fo. 110 (b) 1. Cf. D.B., I. 199 (a) 2, and I.E., p. 110.

62 'Socam comes Algarus habuit' = 'soca remansit comiti Algaro'. See, for instance, the similar case in which a 'man'
of Earl Waltheof 'terram suam dare vel vendere potuit, sed abbas de Rameseia socam habuit' (I.C.C., fo. 122, b, 2),
where D.B. has: 'dare potuit, sed soca remansit abbati de Ramesy' (i. 202, b, 1).

63 'Et in eadem villa iii. liberi homines ... de quibus abbas non habebat nisi commendationem: soca in kanincghala
regis.'

64 'Hanc terram tenuit godmundus homo comitis Waltevi; soca vero remansit abbati ely' (p. 115).

65 'Unum liberum hominem unde abbas habet sacam et socam tantum' (p. 140).

66 Domesday Studies, p. 556.

67 Inq. El., pp. 140, 141.

68 Domesday Studies, p. 209.

69 Domesday Studies, p. 187.

70 It is essential to bear in mind that the Domesday scribes had nothing to guide them but the bare words of the
return, so that if they thus equated these expressions, they can only have done so because the rule was of universal
application.

71 Archæological Review, vol. i, p. 286.

72 Compare also the Exon. Domesday, where 'Stoches', which is entered 'pro. ii. virgatis et dim.' appears in D.B. as
'dim. hida et dim. virga'.

73 See below, and ante, p. 17, note.

74 Key to Domesday, p. 14.

75 It is to this evidence that I made allusion in Domesday Studies (p. 225). Similar evidence as to the Domesday
carucate is found in the Inq. El. (Ed. Hamilton, pp. 156, 178) where 'lx. acre' equate 'dim. c[arucata]'.

76 D.B. erroneously reads 'xxx.' (30) by the insertion of an 'x' too many. The I.C.C. correctly reads 'xx.' (20), its
accuracy here being proved by the above arithmetic. Thus the I.C.C. corrects a reading which (1) would, but for it,
appear fatal to the belief that 30 acres = a virgate; (2) would upset the above arithmetic. This ought to be clearly
grasped, because it well illustrates the element of clerical error, and shows how apparent discrepancies in our rule
may be due to a faulty text alone.

77 Here, as in the preceding instance, Domesday is in error, reading 'one virgate' ('i virgata') where the I.C.C.
correctly gives us half a virgate ('dimidiam virgam'). The remarks in the preceding note apply equally here.

78 Here, again, Domesday is in error, reading two and a half virgates, where the I.C.C. has one and a half.

79 These two entries are by a blunder in the I.C.C. (see above, p. 23) erroneously rolled into one (of ⅓ virgate). In
this case it is Domesday Book which corrects the I.C.C., and preserves for us the right version.

80 The I.C.C., which is very corrupt in its account of this township, gives us a deficiency of 1 hide 0½ virgates.

81 The apparent exception was caused by the Inq. Com. Cant. reading 'pro iiii. hidis', and omitting the words 'xl.
acras minus', the true assessment of the Manor, when the king's estate was excluded, being 'three hides less forty
acres'.

82 The blunder consists in treating 6½ (geld) acres as part of the Countess Judith's estate, whereas they had been
reckoned separately; the discrepancy is due to D.B. reading 'ii. acras', where the I.C.C. has 'xxii. acras'.

83 Eyton's Notes on Domesday, p. 12.

84 Ibid., p. 13.

85 Dr Stubbs' remarks 'on the vexed question of the extent of the hide' will be found in a note to his Const. Hist., vol.
i (1874), p. 74. Mr Eyton (Key to Domesday, p. 14) asserted that the Domesday hide contained 48 geld-acres. Prof
Earle in his Land Charters and Saxonic Documents (1888) reviews the question of the hide, but leaves it
undetermined (pp. lii-liii, 457-461).

86 See above, p. 27.

87 Antiquary, June 1882, p. 242. See also Domesday Studies, vol. i, p. 119.

88 The I.C.C. omits the king's Manor (7¼ hides, 8 ploughlands).

89 I do not here discuss the cause of the reduction. Indeed, this would be hard to discover; for the original
assessment was distinctly low, whether we compare it with the aggregate of ploughlands or of valuation. It is true
that the total of valets which had been £235 0s 4d T.R.E., and was £203 8s 4d at the time of the survey, had fallen so
low as £161 18s 4d, when the grantees received their lands, but, even at the lowest figure, the assessment was still
moderate.

90 'Burgum de Grentebrige pro uno Hundredo se defendebat.'—D.B., i. 189.

91 This figure is arrived at by adding to the 'hida et dimidia et xx. acræ' of Domesday, and the Inq. Com. Cant. the
'viii. hidæ et xl. acræ', which the latter omits, but which Domesday records. The sum is exactly ten hides.

92 Domesday reads 'iii.', and Inq. Com. Cant. 'iiii.'

93 I.C.C. reads 'x.'

94 'Per concessionem ejusdem regis' (Domesday). Compare also the five hides knocked off the assessment of
Alveston by Henry I, and another ten hides off that of Hampton (Domesday Studies, pp. 99, 103).

95 Const. Hist., i, 105.

96 See below, p. 87.

97 See also Domesday Studies, i, 117.

98 Domesday Studies, i, 122-30.

99 The fragments of the Hundred of Papworth and North Stow, which it contains, are too small to enable us to speak
with certainty.

100 Correcting the Inq. Com. Cant. by adding from Domesday the royal Manors in Isleham and Fordham.

101 Bedford, 1881.

102 'Huntedun Burg defendebat se ad geldum regis pro quarta parte de Hyrstingestan hundred pro L. hidis.'—
Domesday, i, 203.

103 Adjoining Manors held by the Abbot of Ely.

104 I have not attempted to group these six Manors, as we have not sufficient information to warrant it. They would,
however, form two groups of twenty hides each, or one of twenty-five and another of fifteen.

105 There are five entries relating to Catworth (fos. 205b, 206, 206b, 217b), which, by the addition of 11 hides (1 +
1 + 3 + 2 + 3 + 1), would bring up its assessment to 15; but as they are all credited in Domesday to other Hundreds,
and as there are two Catworths surveyed, I have adhered to the above figure.

106 Introduction to Domesday, i, 134. The italics are his own.

107 Const. Hist., i, 99.

108 This point brings further into line the towns and the rural Hundreds, through the 100-hide and the 50-hide
assessments of the former. (See my 'Danegeld' Essay in Domesday Studies.)

109 Edgar spoke of it as three Hundreds.

110 'Unum hundret quod vocatur Oswaldeslaw in quo jacent ccc. hidæ.'—D.B., i., 172b.

111 It also contained one 23-hide and two 24-hide Manors, which were once perhaps, of 25 hides. The Church of
Worcester, also possessed, outside this Hundred, Manors (inter alia) of 20, 15, 10, and 5 hides. (See below, p. 143.)

112 D.B., i. 175b.

113 I make the aggregate 118½ hides.

114 'Quæ hic [Dodintret hundred] placitant et geldant et ad Hereford reddunt firmam suam.' It would have been said
in Cambridgeshire that their 'wara' was in Doddentree Hundred.

115 Eyton's Somerset Survey, ii, 25.

116 Eyton's Dorset Domesday, p. 14.

117 I drew attention in the Archæological Review (vol. 1) to a Cornish survey of 21 Ed. I. (Testa de Nevill, p. 204),
in which every Cornish acre contains a Cornish carucate.

118 Domesday Studies, p. 172.

119 'A New View of the Geldable Unit of Assessment of Domesday.' Ibid., pp. 227-363, 561-619.

120 Archæological Review, i, 285-95; iv, 130-40, 391.

121 Ibid., iv, 325.

122 A curious hint of the grouping of Vills is afforded in Oxfordshire by Adderbury and Bloxham. Domesday first
gives us an assessment of 34½ hides in the two, and then 15½ hides in Adderbury, making in all, for the two, 50
hides, the same as Banbury.] (Return to p. 72)

123 This evidence is rendered available by the useful Notes on the Oxfordshire Domesday, published by the
Clarendon Press in 1892.

124 40 + 5 + 5.

125 'Unam hidam et iiies. virgatas et iiiciam. partem de i. virgata.'

126 'Dimidiam hidam et iiiciam. partem dimidiæ hidæ.'

127 Lysons. So also Domesday: 'soco vero jacebat in Stains'.

128 Domesday Studies, i. 120. See also supra, p. 45, and the case of Northampton, infra.

129 Domesday, i. 64b.

130 English Historical Review, 1889, iv. 729.

131 English Historical Review, 1889, iv. 728-9.

132 Archæological Review, iv. 313-27.

133 Mr Stevenson, perhaps, is rather too severe on Canon Taylor's 'Carucate' remarks in the New English Dictionary.
Strictly, no doubt, the Canon was mistaken, with Mr Pell, in reckoning 120 as 144 'by the English number'; but the
evidence in his paper on 'the plough and the ploughland' seems to establish a practice of counting by twelve instead
of ten.

134 Genealogist, N.S., vi. 160-1.

135 Archæological Review, iv. 322.

136 On this point one may compare with profit 'the making of the Danelaw' (858-78), by the late Mr Green
(Conquest of England, pp. 114-29), who had devoted to this subject much attention. He discusses the limits of
Eastern Mercia, the district of the Five Boroughs, in the light of local nomenclature (Ibid., pp. 121-2), and includes
within it, on this ground, Northamptonshire, while observing that the country about Buckingham, which formed the
southern border of the 'Five Boroughs', has no 'byes'. My own evidence is wholly distinct from that of local
nomenclature, and defines more sharply the district settled and reorganized by the Danes. The hidation of
Northamptonshire is peculiar, a unit of four (reminding one of the Mercian shilling) coming into prominence. Still, it
was not carucated, but retained its assessment in hides.

137 Stamford is assigned to Lincolnshire by Domesday, but is now in Rutland. The 'Rutland' of Domesday (the
northern portion of the county as at present constituted) was included, we shall find, in the carucated district by
which it was surrounded on the north.

138 Reg. Mag. Alb. at York, pars. ii. 1. Quoted by Canon Raine, in his edition of John of Hexham (who applies these
formulæ to Hexham itself), p. 61.

139 vide infra, p. 149, et seq.

140 'Suma iii. hundr' et vi. car. et vi. bov.'

141 'Suma iiii. hundr' et x. car.' (a wrong total).

142 'Summa iii. hundr' et v. car. et iiii. bov.'

143 See also on these Hundreds Mr Stevenson's remarks in English Historical Review, v. 96, which have appeared
since I made these researches.

144 This appears to be a clerical error. The actual figures represent 'Hundreds'.

145 The Northern division by threes and sixes is responsible, of course, for the six 'sheaddings' of the Isle of Man.
On their connection with the 'scypfylleth' of three Hundreds see Vigfusson in English Historical Review, ii. 500.

146 The aggregate of these areal measures does not bear out the statement of Domesday regarding them, the former
Wapentake containing eighty-four ploughlands, where Domesday allows it only forty-eight.

147 The entry is far more suggestive of the 'Hundreds' (vide infra) in Leicestershire, on the border of which Sawley
stood. This remark applies also to the entry (i. 291b) that Leake (Notts) 'jacet in Pluntree Hund'.

148 See D.B., i. fos. 298, 298b, and fo. 379.

149 As Mr Pell did in the case of Clifton.

150 vide infra, p. 160.

151 'There is no trace of any,' writes Canon Taylor (Domesday Studies, i. 74).

152 As with maenols and trevs in North and South Wales.

153 Mr Pell tried to explain it by assuming that the Leicestershire carucates were really small virgates of the hida in
question!

154 This at once shows the absurdity of taking these eighteen carucates to be eighteen 'virgates' of a normal hide,
and of all the reasoning based thereupon.

155 See more below on this point.

156 English Historical Review, v. 95.

157 Mr Stevenson, moreover, should surely, to obtain the meaning he wants, have extended car as 'car[ucatarum]'.

158 I also hold the formula 'T.R.E. erant ibi x car[ucæ]' to refer to ploughs, not ploughlands.

159 Note that the assessment of 2⅝ carucates represented 2½ ploughlands, and that of 9⅜ carucates only 7
ploughlands. No relation, therefore, can be traced here.

160 Conquest of England, p. 121 note.

161 Ibid., p. 276.

162 Chester Archæological Journal, vol. v.

163 'De harieta Lagemanorum habuit isdem picot viii. lib,' etc. (i. 189).

164 Domesday Studies, i. 143-86.

165 Ibid., 157.

166 According to Canon Taylor's ingenious theory, the ratio should be 1 to 1 (for two-field Manors), or 2 to 1 for
three-field Manors. But in Leicestershire there is a remarkable prevalence of the 3 to 2 ratio, which his theory can, at
best, only explain as exceptional.

167 Supra, p. 74.

168 The figures are taken from the 'Index' to the Hundreds at the close of the first volume of Domesday Book, and
the names are arranged in the same order as they are there found.

169 There is plenty of similar evidence elsewhere in the shire. Thus we find the Craven Manors assessed at 6, 6, 6, 3,
3, 4, 6, 10, 2, 2, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 2, 3, 3, 3 carucates. These assessments would give us 24 (6 + 6 + 6 + 3 + 3) + 24 (4 +
6 + 10 + 2 + 2) + 18 (3 + 3 + 3 + 3 + 3 + 3) + 11 (2 + 3 + 3 + 3).

170 Supra, pp. 51, 62.

171 Compare the 'Reparto de la contribucion', found in the Spanish village communities, the members of which
apportioned the assessment among themselves.

172 Key to Domesday: Dorset, p. 14.

173 The anomalous position of Rutland also was, of course, a disturbing element.

174 This low assessment is equally obvious in that of the several Manors.

175 Probably 1⁄27, as against about 1⁄6 for Somerset and Dorset jointly.

176 See Mr Green's maps in his work, The Making of England, and Mr Freeman's map of 'Britain in 597', in vol. i. of
his Norman Conquest. The figures for Hampshire, unfortunately, are wanting in the roll of 1156, as in that of 1130.

177 Even if such assessment were not required, at first, for financial reasons, it might be necessary for such
obligations as eventually formed the 'trinoda necessitas'.

178 See Stubbs, Select Charters, pp. 67-9, and Const. Hist., i. 96-9.

179 Select Charters, p. 67.

180 Vol. i., pp. 98, 99. Cf. Select Charters, p. 67: 'It is sometimes stated that the Hundred is a primitive subdivision
consisting of a hundred hides of land, or apportioned to a hundred families, the great objection to which theory is the
impossibility of reconciling the historical Hundreds with any such computation.'

181 Select Charters, p. 6.

182 Thus, the first entry for East Anglia (ii. 109b) has 'de xx. solidis reddit xvi. d. in gelto.'

183 Compare also the very curious system of 'purses' adopted by the Cinque Ports. The 'purse' was £4 7s, and to
every 'purse' Sandwich, for instance, paid twenty shillings, while, whenever it paid twenty such shillings, its four
'members' were assessed to pay three and fourpence apiece towards it.

184 'In hundredo de Tinghowe sunt xx. villæ ex quibus constituuntur ix. lete, quas sic distinguimus.' Gage's Suffolk,
p. xii.

185 Select Pleas in Manorial Courts (Selden Society), I., lxiii.—lxxvi.

186 Ibid., p. lxxvi.

187 'De gelto v. sol'' (D.B., ii. 286b). Sudbury was an outlying portion of the Hundred of Thingoe, in which is
situated Bury St Edmunds, of which we read (D.B., ii. 372): 'quando in hundredo solvitur ad geldum i. libra, tunc
inde exeunt lx. d. ad victum monachorum.' This substitution, apparently, of Sudbury (as three leets) for Bury St
Edmunds (of which the monks received the geld) deserves investigation.

188 See p. 58.

189 'Wisbeche, quæ est quarta pars centuriatus insulæ' (Liber Eliensis p. 192).

190 'In Sparle et in Pagrave, xviii. d. quando hundret scotabat xx. solidos et in Acra vi. d. et in pichensam xii. d.
quicunque ibi teneat' (ii. 119b). See also note 182.

191 See Domesday Studies, p. 117.

192 Reprinted from the English Historical Review, October 1892.

193 Ninth Report on Historical MSS., App. I, 38.

194 Domesday of St. Paul's, p. iv.

195 This is a slip. Drayton was in Middlesex, and the words (which Mr Seebohm quotes) are 'cum una hida de
solande'.

196 I know of no authority for this form.

197 The 'Lathes' of Kent of course point in the same direction.

198 Professor Vinogradoff states, on the contrary, that 'all are irregular in their formation'.

199 English Village Community, pp. 54, 139, 396.

200 The phrase 'quot hidæ sint ibi' is of importance because such formulae as 'T.R.E. geldabat pro ii. hidis, sed
tamen sunt ibi xii. hidæ', have sometimes been understood to imply two geldable, but twelve arable hides, whereas
both figures refer to assessment only.

201 English Village Community, 212 note.

202 We might also compare the droit de gîte on the other side of the Channel.

203 I am indebted for these identifications to Mr Eyton's work.

204 It is a further and fundamental error that Mr Eyton speaks of the firma unius noctis as 'borough taxation',
whereas it was essentially of the nature of rent, not taxes.

205 I am indebted for these identifications to Mr Eyton's work.

206 We should perhaps read this as explaining the composition of the centuriatus, viz.: 'the priests, the reeves, and
six villeins from each Vill'.

207 Of this conflict there is a good instance, almost at the outset of the Cambridgeshire survey (p. 3): 'Hanc terram
posuit Orgarus in vadimonio ... ut homines Goisfridi dicunt. Sed homines de hundredo neque breve aliquid neque
legat' R.E. inde viderunt, neque testimonium perhibent.'

208 Whittlesford omitted, because in this Hundred no lands were held or claimed by the Abbey.

209 Compare Wilkins, 125 (quoted by Palgrave, English Commonwealth, i. 464) on English and 'Welsh' in Devon:
'Disputes arising between the plaintiffs and defendants of the two nations were to be decided by a court of twelve
"lawmen"—six English and six Welsh—the representatives of the respective communities. And it may be observed
that the principle which suggested this dimidiated tribunal was generally adopted in our border law.'

210 Wharton's Anglia Sacra, i. 339.

211 Palgrave's Commonwealth, ii. 183.

212 This seems of great importance as a very early instance of the quatuor villatæ system, on which see Gross's 'The
Early History and Influence of the Office of Coroner' (Political Science Quarterly, vol. vii, No. 4), where the
researches of Prof Maitland and others are summarized.

213 Only four, however, of the fourteen actually swore: 'reliquos vero decem quietavit Willelmus abbas, qui parati
erant jurare'.

214 The number eight perhaps, is unusual for the jury of a Hundred but we have an instance in 1222, of a 'jurata per
octo legales cives Lincolniæ et præterea per octo legales homines de visneto Lincolnie' (Bracton's Note-book, ii.

121); and see Addenda.

215 His surname is there omitted, but his identity is proved by Humphrey 'de Anslevilla' occurring elsewhere as an
under-tenant of Eudo.

216 So I conclude from his Introduction to Domesday, i. 22, note 2.

217 Inquisitio Comitatus Cantabrigiensi, pp. 97 et seq.

218 Ed. Hamilton, pp. 184-9.

219 Ibid., pp. 97, 101.

220 C omits 'et'.

221 Here the scribe of C, puzzled by the evident corruption of the text from which he copied, read 'inv[enit]'.

222 'Toft' (rightly) in C.

223 Chauelæi, C.

224 Stanhard[us], B, C.

225 Frauuis, C.

226 Chertelinge, C.

227 Cheleia, C.

228 Wigeni, C. This was 'Wigonus de mara' (I.C.C.) or 'Wighen' (D.B.) Count Alan's under-tenant at Ditton.

229 Eurard[us] in D.B.

230 'Juraverunt homines scilicet Alerann[us], Rogger[us] homo Walteri Giffardi' omitted in C.

231 A sokeman of the Abbot of Ely at Suafham.

232 Staplehoe Hundred.

233 This is a noticeable case because 'mo' has been interlined in B text of I.E., and because this man can be
identified in I.C.C. and D.B. as an under-tenant in the Hundred.

234 The I.E. version ('bans') is the right one.

235 Rectius 'I. hidam'.

236 C text.

237 Commend' 'S. ae.' is found on 386b, ad pedem.

238 From internal evidence I hold this writ to have been sent from over sea. It cannot have been issued by William
Rufus, for the Bishop of Coutances rebelled against him in 1088, and William Rufus did not go abroad till later in
his reign.

239 This is usually quoted 'inquirunt', which is the wrong reading.

240 The right reading.

241 Quantum in C text.

242 The text here seems to be corrupt, C reading 'tunc' for 'simul'. As the 'tunc' and 'modo' formula is represented in
the next clause, it seems more probable that 'simul' is the right reading, and refers to the totals entered in the
Inquisitio. In that case the words 'et quantum modo' are an interpolation.

243 Hallow near Worcester.

244 Note, Ash—'Esch'—'Naisse'.

245 Compare the heading of the 'breve abbatis': 'Hic imbreviatur quot carucas', etc., etc. The returns of the Norman
barons in 1172 were styled 'breves'.

246 Ed. Hamilton, p. 137.

247 This also seems to have been taken from the detailed original returns.

248 So far back as 1887 I raised this question, writing: 'Indeed, heretical though the view may be, I see no proof
whatever that Domesday Book was itself compiled in 1086' (Antiquary, xvi. 8).

249 Domesday Studies, pp. 526, 626.

250 The most erroneous date that has been suggested for Domesday is the year 1080. Ellis wrote, referring to Webb's
'short account', that 'the Red Book of the Exchequer seems to have been erroneously quoted as fixing the time of
entrance upon it as 1080' (i. 3). Mr Ewald,* following in his footsteps, has repeated his statement (under 'Domesday
Book'), in the Encyclopædia Britannica; and, lastly, Mr de Gray Birch asserts on his authority that 'this valuable
manuscript' is not responsible for that date (Domesday Book, p. 71). All these writers are mistaken. The Diologus de
Scaccario, indeed, does not mention a year, but Swereford's famous Introduction, in the Red Book of the Exchequer,
does give us, by an astounding blunder, the fourteenth year of the Conqueror (1079-80) as the date of Domesday (see
below, p. 210).
* Author of Our Public Records.

251 I am not sure that even the 'pertin[ent] ad rege[m]' of the 'first' volume (100b) is not a mistake for 'regnum'.

252 On fo. 17 is a curious deleted list of church fiefs in Essex, which has no business there.

253 Introduction to Domesday, i. 354.

254 vide infra, p. 154.

255 Henry, says Orderic, in 1100, 'concito cursu ad arcem Guentoniæ, ubi regalis thesaurus continebatur, festinavit'.

256 This account of the Winchester placitum is taken from my second article on 'The Custody of Domesday Book'
(Antiquary, xvi. 9-10).

257 Academy, November 13, 1886; Domesday Studies, p. 537 note; and Mr Hall's Antiquities of the Exchequer,
chap. i.

258 Mon. Ang., iii. 86.

259 Hen. Hunt., 211; Richard of Hexham says of Henry I's charter of liberties that 'in ærari suo apud Wintoniam
[eam] conservari præcepit' (p. 142).

260 Domesday Studies, 546-7.

261 Supra, note 255.

262 Athenæum, November 27, 1886.

263 See also Domesday Studies, 547 note2.

264 Domesday Studies, 539 et seq.

265 It will be observed that I do not touch the Liber Exoniensis.

266 Possibly at second-hand, see p. 20 note (Footnote: 9, above), and Addenda.

THE NORTHAMPTONSHIRE GELD-ROLL
This remarkable document was printed by Sir Henry Ellis (1833) in his General Introduction to
Domesday (i. 184-7) from the fine Peterborough Cartulary belonging to the Society of
Antiquaries (MS. 60). I shall not, therefore, reprint it here, but will give the opening entry as a
specimen of its style:

This is unto Suttunes (Sutton) hundred, that is an hundred hides. So it was in
King Edward's day. And thereof is 'gewered' one and twenty hides and two-
thirds of a hide, and [there are] forty hides inland and ten hides [of] the King's
ferm land, and eight and twenty hides and the third of a hide waste.

We have seen (supra, p. 59) that Ellis not only erred, but even led Dr Stubbs into error, as to the
character of the 'hundreds' enumerated in this document. Except for that, I cannot find any real
notice taken of it, although it has been in print over sixty years. It appears to be not even
mentioned in Mr Stuart Moore's volume on Northamptonshire in Domesday; and no one, it
seems, has cared to inquire to what date it belongs, or what it really is.1

Now, although written in old English, it is well subsequent to the Conquest, for it mentions inter
alias 'Rodbertes wif heorles', who, we shall find, was Maud, wife of the Count of Mortain. It also
mentions William and Richard Engaine, Northamptonshire tenants in Domesday. On the other
hand, it cannot be later than 1075, for it speaks of lands held by 'the lady, the King's wife'; and
this was Edith, Edward's widow, whose Northamptonshire lands passed to King William at her
death in 1075. Of the very few names mentioned, one may surprise and the other puzzle us. The
former is that of 'the Scot King', holding land even then in a shire where his successors were to
hold it so largely: the other is 'Osmund, the King's writer', in whom one is grievously tempted to
detect the future Chancellor, Saint and Bishop. But, apart from his identity, his peculiar style,
exactly equating, as it does, the Latin 'clericus regis', emboldens me to make the hazardous
suggestion that we possibly have in this document an English rendering of a Latin original,
executed in the Peterborough scriptorium.

For what was the purpose of the document? It may be pronounced without hesitation to be no
other than a geld-roll, recording, it would seem, a levy of Danegeld hitherto unknown.2 There are
three features which it has in common with the rolls of 1084: it is drawn up hundred by hundred;

it records the exemption of demesne; and it specifies those lands that had failed to pay their
quota.3

Its salient feature is one that, at first sight, might seem to impugn its authenticity. This is the
almost incredible amount of land lying 'waste'. If we confine our attention to the land liable to
geld represented by the first and fourth columns in my analysis below, we see that by far the
larger proportion of it is entered as 'waste': yet this witness to a terrible devastation is the best
proof of its authenticity; for it sets before us the fruits of those ravages in the autumn of 1065,
which are thus described by Mr Freeman, paraphrasing the English chronicle:

Morkere's Northern followers dealt with the country about Northampton as if
it had been the country of an enemy. They slew men, burned corn and houses,
carried off cattle, and at last led captive several hundred prisoners, seemingly
as slaves. The blow was so severe that it was remembered even when one
would have thought that that and all other lesser wrongs would have been
forgotten in the general overthrow of England. Northamptonshire and the
shires near to it were for many winters the worse.

Mr Freeman, had he read it, would have eagerly welcomed our record's striking testimony to the
truth of the Chronicle's words.

The devastation that our roll records had been well repaired at the time of Domesday; but we
obtain a glimpse of it in the Rockingham entry: 'Wasta erat quando rex W. jussit ibi castellum
fieri. Modo valet xxvi. sol.' (i. 220).

But it is not only that the entries of 'waste' on our roll are thus explained: they further prove it to
be, as I have urged, a 'Danegeld' roll. For, when we compare it with the Pipe-Roll of 2 Henry II
(1156), we find the latter similarly allowing for the non-receipt of geld from land 'in waste'; and
it is specially noteworthy that the portion thus 'waste' is in every case, as on our roll, entered after
the others. The fact that the geld was remitted on land that had been made 'waste' is now
established by collation of these two records.

Incidentally, it may be pointed out that as our document bears witness to the devastation of
Northamptonshire in 1065, so the first surviving roll of Henry II illustrates the local range of
devastation under Stephen. In Kent, which had been throughout under the royal rule, the waste
was infinitesimal; in Yorkshire it was slight; but in the Midlands, which had long been the battle-
ground of rival feudal magnates, it was so extensive that, as here in Northamptonshire after the
Conquest, there was more land exempted as 'waste' than there was capable of paying.

Before leaving this subject I briefly compare the cases of Northamptonshire and of East Sussex.
In the former, we have seen, it is only our document that preserves for us evidence of the ravages
in 1065; Domesday does not record them, because they had then (1086) been repaired. But in
East Sussex, the entries are fuller; and as was observed by Mr Hayley, an intelligent local
antiquary:

It is the method of Domesday Book, after reciting the particulars relating to
each Manor, to set down the valuation thereof, at three several periods, to wit,
the time of King Edward the Confessor, afterwards when the new tenant

entered upon it, and again at the time when the survey was made. Now it is to
be observed in perusing the account of the Rape of Hastings in that book, that
in several of the Manors therein at the second of these periods, it is recorded
of them that they were waste, and from this circumstance it may upon good
ground be concluded what parts of that Rape were marched over by, and
suffered from the ravages of the two armies of the Conqueror and King
Harold; and indeed, the situations of those Manors is such as evidently shows
their then devastated state to be owing to that cause.4

Mr Freeman's treatment of this theory was highly characteristic. In the Appendix he devoted to
the subject5 he first contemptuously observed of the allusion to Harold's army:

This notion would hardly have needed any answer except from the sort of
sanction given to it by the two writers who quote Mr Hayley. I do not believe
that any army of any age ever passed through a district without doing some
damage, but to suppose that Harold systematically harried his own kingdom
does seem to me the height of absurdity.

And he, further, indignantly denied that such a King as Harold was 'likely to mark his course by
systematic harrying'. Now, Mr Hayley had never charged him with 'systematic harrying'; he had
merely traced with much ingenuity, the approach of his army to Senlac by the damage, Mr
Freeman admits, its passage, when assembled, must have caused.

The fact is that Mr Hayley had, and Mr Freeman had not, read his Domesday 'with common
care'.6 The latter started from the hasty assertion that:

the lasting nature of the destruction wrought at this time is shown by the large
number of places round about Hastings which are returned in Domesday as
'waste'.

Hence he argued, Harold, even had he been 'Swegen himself'—

could not have done the sort of lasting damage which is implied in the lands
being returned as 'waste' twenty years after. The ravaging must have been
something thorough and systematic, like the ravaging of Northumberland a
few years later.

The whole argument rests on a careless reading of Domesday. It was on passages such as these
that Mr Hayley had relied:

Totum manerium T.R.E. valebat xx. lib. Et post vasta fuit. Modo xviii. lib. et
x. sol.

Totum manerium T.R.E. valebat xiiii. lib. Postea vastatum fuit. Modo xxii.
lib.

Totum manerium T.R.E. valebat cxiiii. sol. Modo vii. lib. Vastatum fuit.7

Thus, so far from being returned in 1086 as 'waste', these Manors, we see, had already recovered
from their devastation at the Conquest, and had even, in some cases, increased their value. And
so Mr Freeman's argument falls to the ground.

But as he was eager to vindicate Harold from a quite imaginary charge, I will try to clear William
from Mr Freeman's very real one. Having wrongly concluded that the ravages were 'lasting', and
must therefore have been 'systematic', Mr Freeman wrote:

There can be little doubt but that William's ravages were not only done
systematically, but were done with a fixed and politic purpose (p. 413) ...
there can be little doubt that they were systematic ravages done with the
settled object of bringing Harold to a battle (p. 741).

Possibly the writer had in his mind the harrying of the lands of the Athenians, as described in the
pages of Thucydides: but how can it have been politic for William, not only to provoke Harold,
but to outrage the English people? It was Harold with whom his quarrel lay; and as to those he
hoped to make his future subjects, to ravage their lands wilfully and wantonly was scarcely the
way to commend himself to their favour: it would rather impel them, in dread of his ways, to
resist his dominion to the death.

But if William's policy be matter of question, Domesday at least is matter of fact; and Mr
Freeman's followers cannot be surprised at the opposition he provoked, when we find him thus
ridiculing a student for a charge he never made, and proved to have himself erred from his
careless reading of Domesday.

I now append an analysis of the roll, showing the proportion of land 'gewered',8 of 'inland', of
terra regis, of land which had not paid (in square brackets), and of 'waste'. The totals in square
brackets are those given in the document; the others are those actually accounted for.

Inland Terra Regis Waste Total
Sutton 21⅔ 40 10 28⅓ 100 [100]
Warden 17¾ 40 41¼ 99 [99]
Cleyley 18 40 42 100 [100]
Gravesend 18½ 35 5 41½ 100 [100]
'Eadbolds Stow' 23½ 45 5 26½ 100 [100]
'Ailwardsley' 16½ 40 [6½] 37 100 [100]
Foxley 16 30 21 33 100 [100]
Wyceste 199 40 20 21 100 [100]
Huxlow 8 15 39 62 [62]
Willybrook 7 11 31 13 62 [62]
Upton Green 50 27 [3½] 29½10 110 [109]
Neuesland [80½]11 59 [8] 12½ [160]
Navisford 15 14 33 62 [62]
Polebrook 10 20 32 62 [62]

Newbottlegrove 44⅞ 72 33⅛ 150 [150]
Gilsborough 16 68 66 150 [150]
Spelho 20½ [Borough [16] 28½ 90 [90]
25]
Wiceslea W. 10 40 30 80 [80]
Wiceslea E. 15 34 31 80 [80]
'Stotfald' 9⅛ 40 50⅛ 99¼ [100]
Stoke 18 [10] 12 [40]
Higham 49½ 44 56 149½ [150]
'Malesley' 12 30 8 30 80 [80]
Corby 8½ 12¼ 12¼ [?4] 10¾ 47¾ [47]
Rothwell 10 20 7½ [7½] 4512 [60]
'Andwertheshoe' [? 25 39 [90]
26]13
Ordlingbury 29½ 24½ 21 80 [80]
'Wimersley' 41 60 49 150 [150]

The persons mentioned as not having paid can in most cases be identified. Thus 'Robert the Earl's
wife' is one of those in Rothwell Hundred, whose land was 'unwered'. This was clearly Maud,
wife of Count Robert of Mortain, who had been given lands by her father, Roger of Montgomery,
at Harrington in this Hundred. Domesday, it is true, where it figures as 'Arintone', knows it only
as 'Terra æcclesiæ de Grestain' (222 b); but a charter of Richard I (per Inspeximus) confirms to
the Abbey 'ex dono Matildis Comitisse Moreton ... xxxii. hidas terre quas dederat ei pater suus
Rogerus de Montegomerico, scilicet apud Haxintonam [sic] viii. hidas, etc.'14 As the lands had
first been given to Roger, then by him to his daughter, and, finally, by her to the Abbey, I cannot
think our document earlier, at any rate, than 1068. Edith, whose name proves it not to be later
than 1075, is entered as 'the lady, the King's wife', holding eight hides in Neuesland Hundred, and
again as a holder in Rothwell Hundred, under the name of 'the King's wife'. Both entries,
doubtless, refer to her wide-spreading Manor of 'Tingdene' (i. 222), parts of which lay in both the
above Hundreds. Of the other holders we may notice 'Urs' (? Urse d'Abetot), and 'Witeget the
priest'; but these are quite eclipsed by Richard and William Engaine, of whom the former occurs
twice and the latter thrice on the roll. In Spelho Hundred 'Richard' seems to be credited with ten
hides at 'Habintune' on which 'nan peni' had been paid. In Domesday his holding at Abintone is
given as four hides (i. 229). In the same Hundred, William's land at 'Multune' is in default.
Moulton is not entered under his fief in Domesday, but under that of Robert de Buci we find a
'William' holding of him a hide and a virgate and a half in Moulton. This was William Engaine,
as was the 'William' of our roll; and in the Hen. I-Hen. II survey,15 we find land in Moulton
entered as of Engaine's fee. Still more interesting is it to note that so late as 25 Ed. I. more than
two centuries after Domesday, John Engayne is found holding half a fee in Moulton of Ralf
Basset, and Basset of the King in capite. For, as our Leicestershire survey shows,16 the
Domesday fief of Robert de Buci had passed to Basset, of whose heir, therefore, Engayne held,
as his ancestor had held of Robert de Buci, in the days of William the Conqueror.

It is particularly instructive to follow out the Northamptonshire fief of William Engaine. In
Domesday (i. 229) he is entered only as 'Willelmus' holding 3½ hides in Pytchley (Piteslea), and

Laxton (Lastone), worth at that time, £3 10s. 'Vitalis' Engaine was his heir in 1130, for the Pipe-
Roll of 31 Hen. I (p. 82) records his discharge of a debt to the crown 'ut rehabeat terram suam de
Laxetona'. And this is confirmed by the survey of 1125 in the Liber Niger of Peterborough, where
we read under 'Pihtesle' (p. 162): 'Et Vitalis reddit iii. solidos pro i. virga', this being the 'i. virga'
assigned to him in the list of Peterborough knights (Ibid., p. 169). The 'Rotulus de Dominabus'
(1185) shows us the 'Piteslea' estate in the hands of Margaret Engaine, makes it worth £6, and
mentions that her heir was Richard Engaine (p. 14). The 'Testa de Nevill' (p. 37) enters Richard
'de Angayne' as holding five carucates of land in 'Pettesle' and 'Laxeton' worth £6 a year. It tells
us, further, that he held them by serjeanty—'et est venator leporum, et facit servitium'. From the
nature of this return I assign it to the inquest of 1198, in which case it is of some value, as
identifying five carucates under the new assessment with the 3½ hides recorded in Domesday.17
Fulc de Lisures, on the other hand—the heir of the Richard Engaine of Domesday—returned
himself in 1166, as the King's forester in fee and attending the King's person, with his horn
hanging from his neck.18

The association of Pytchley with hunting is carried back even further still. For Richard and
William Engaine had for their predecessor in title, Ælfwine the huntsman ('venator'), who owned
their lands when King Edward sat upon the throne.

Among the lands deducted we observe in Spelho Hundred 'fif and xx. hida byrigland'. This
represents the assessment in hides of the Borough of Northampton, and, so far as I know, is the
only mention of that assessment to be found. In my paper on 'Danegeld and the Finance of
Domesday', I pointed out that Bridport and Malmesbury were assessed at five hides each,
Dorchester, Wareham, and Hertford at ten hides, Worcester at fifteen, Bath and Shaftesbury at
twenty, etc.19 Northampton (we now see) was assessed in the same manner, and Chester and
Huntingdon at no less than fifty hides each. Thus they admirably illustrate assessment in terms of
the five-hide unit. We find this primitive system obsolete in 1130, when a borough gave an
'auxilium' where its county paid Danegeld. But our roll implies that, here at least, it was already
obsolete in the early days of the Conquest; for the twenty-five hides of 'byrigland' are, for the
payment of 'geld', deducted from the Hundred.

From the date I have assigned to this document (ante-1075), it may fairly claim to represent our
earliest financial record. Its illustrative value for Danegeld and the Hundred, and consequently
for Domesday Book, will be obvious to every student.

1 I have found, since this was written, that it was printed by Mr T. O. Cockayne in his little-known Shrine (pp. 205-
8), and pronounced by him (in error) to be 'evidently' of the date 1109-18.

2 I opposed in 1886 (Domesday Studies, pp. 86, 87) the accepted view that no Danegeld was levied by the
Conqueror till the winter of 1083-4 and discussed (Ibid., 88-92) the Inquisitio Geldi, which, as Mr Eyton showed
(Key to Domesday), belongs to that date. It has been persistently confused with the Exon Domesday (being bound up
with it), as by Mr Jones, in his Wiltshire Domesday (pp. xxxvii., 153 et seq.), and Professor Freeman (Quart.
Review, July 1892, p. 22).

3 It was connected, I find, by Mr Cockayne with military service, not with Danegeld.

4 Quoted in Ellis's Introduction to Domesday, i. 315-6.

5 Norm. Conq., iii, 741-2.

6 The phrase employed by Mr Freeman in criticizing Professor Pearson.

7 See Ellis, ut supra.

8 'Wered', like 'Wara' (supra, p. 100), refers to assessment and corresponds with the 'defendit se' phrase in
Domesday. It seems here to represent the land which had actually paid.

9 Wrongly given by Ellis and Cockayne as 'xviii'.

10 Wrongly given by Ellis as 'viii. and xx'.

11 The MS. reads, 'thus micel is gewered ... viiii. and xx. hida and i. hida and viiii. and fifti hida inland'. The text is
clearly corrupt.

12 There is no entry for 'waste' in this hundred, so that possibly the words 'xv. hida westa' are omitted.

13 There are clearly some words omitted here in the Peterborough transcript. We must read: 'and thereof is
"gewered" [? 26 hide and] five and twenty hides inland'.

14 Monasticon, vi. 1090.

15 Infra, p. 175.

16 Infra, p. 173.

17 See my paper on 'The great carucage of 1198' (English Historical Review, iii, 501 et seq.).

18 'Et ego ipse custodio forestagium Regis de feodo meo; et debeo ire cum corpore Regis in servitio suo paratus
equis et armis, cornu meo in collo meo pendente.'—Lib. Rub., i, 333.

19 Domesday Studies, pp. 117-9.

THE KNIGHTS OF PETERBOROUGH
(Temp. Henry I)

The interesting 'Descriptio militum de Abbatia de Burgo' is found in the same MS. as the
Northamptonshire Geld-roll.1 It was printed by Stapleton in the appendix to his Chronicon
Petroburgense (pp. 168-75),2 but no attempt was made to date it. The name of Eudo Dapifer
proves that it cannot have been compiled later than 1120. On the other hand, it cannot well be
earlier than 1100, for some of the Domesday tenants had been succeeded by their sons—Robert
(?) Marmion, for instance, by Roger, and Coleswegen by Picot—while the mention of
'Gislebertus filius Ricardi', possibly the son of Richard of 'Wodeford' (i. 224b), points in the same
direction. As the majority of names, however, seem to be those of Domesday tenants, it is
probable that the list is not later than the Lindsey survey itself, if, indeed, it is not earlier. The
first entry it contains is a good specimen of its value:

Asketillus de Sancto Medardo tenet de abbatia de Burch in Hamtonascira x.
hidas et iii. partes i. virgæ, et in Lincolnescira iii. carrucatas et inde servit se

vi. milite. Et de feudo hujus militis dedit rex Willelmus senior Eudoni
Dapifero in Estona hidam et dimidiam et mandavit de Normannia in Angliam
Episcopo Constantiarum et R. de Oilli per breves suos ut inde darent ei
excambium ad valens in quocumque vellet de iii. vicinis comitatibus; sed
abbas noluit.

We duly find 'Anschitillus' in Domesday, holding 'Witheringham', Northants and 'Osgodeby',
Linc., of the Abbot (i. 221b, 345b). In the same way we are enabled to identify the 'Rogerius
Infans' of our list with 'Rogerius' who held 'Pilchetone', according to Domesday (i. 221b), of the
Abbot, 'Ascelinus de Waltervilla' with the 'Azelinus' of Domesday (Ibid.), 'Gosfridus nepos
Abbatis', with 'Goisfridus' who held in 'Sudtorp' (Ibid.), and 'Rogerius Malfed' with that
'Rogerius' who held of the Abbot at Woodford (i. 222). 'Rogerus', on the other hand, who held in
Domesday two hides at Milton, Northants (i. 221b), and seven bovates at Cleatham, Linc. (i.
346), is represented in our list by the entry:

Turoldus de Meletona ii. hidas in Hamtonascira, et in Lindeseia vi. bovatas, et
inde servit se altero milite (p. 171).

The chief lesson taught us here is the rashness of assuming the identity of tenants happening to
bear the same name. For even among the few who are named as holding of the Abbot of
Peterborough, we have found three Rogers quite distinct from one another.

The entries which follow are of value as absolute proofs of succession:

Domesday Descriptio Militum

In Dailintone tenet Rodbertus filius
Ricardus de abbate Ricardi iiii. hidas
iiiior. hidas (i. in Hamtonascira,
222). et inde servit se
altero milite (p.
175).
In Risun habuit
Elnod iiii. bovatas Picotus filius
terre ad geldum ... Colsuaini habet
Nunc habet dimidiam
Colsuan de abbate carrucatam in
Turoldo (i. 345b). Rison, quam abbas
dedit patri suo tali
servicio quod esset
ad placita abbatis
et manuteneret res
suas et homines
suos in scira et in
aliis locis (p. 175).

This second entry not only records a peculiarly interesting enfeoffment, but identifies 'Colsuan',
the Abbot's under-tenant at Riseholme, with no less a person than the conqueror's 'English
favourite Coleswegen, ... an Englishman who, by whatever means, contrived to hold up his head
among the conquerors of England'.3

As sons, in such cases as these, have succeeded their fathers, it need not surprise us that our list
comprises some names that are found in the Liber Niger survey of 1125.4 Vivian, whom, it tells
us, Abbot Turold had enfeoffed at Oundle (p. 175) occurs there in that survey (p. 158), as does
Robert d'Oilli at Cottingham (pp. 159-73).5 Vitalis ('Viel') Engaine had succeeded William
(Engaine) at Pytchley both in our list and in the survey of 1125 (cf. ante, p. 129).

One of the most interesting and important points in this list of knights is the gleam of new light it
throws on Hereward 'the Wake'. In it we read:

Hugo de Euremou iii. hidas in dominio et vii. bovatas in Lincolneshira, et
servit pro ii. militibus.

Ansford iii. carucatas et servit pro dimidia hida [sic].

Now Hugh de Euremou is the name of the man who, according to the pseudo-Ingulf, married
Hereward's daughter. Here we have proof of his real existence, and are enabled moreover to
detect him, I claim, in that Hugh who, as a 'miles' of the Abbot, held three hides at 'Edintone'
[Etton, Northants] in Domesday (i. 222). Mr Freeman speaking of the vacancy at Bayeux in
1908, wrote:

William at once bestowed the staff on Turold, the brother of Hugh of
Evermont [sic], seemingly the same Hugh who figures in the legend of
Hereward as his son-in-law and successor.6

But the French editors of Ordericus, in a note to the passage from which this statement was taken
(iv. 18), speak of our man as 'Hugue d'Envermeu, donateur du prieuré de St. Laurent d'Envermeu
à l'Abbaye de Bec'.7

Turning for a moment from Hugh to Ansford, we read in the Lincolnshire 'Clamores':

Terram Asford in Bercham hund' dicit Wapentac non habuisse Herewardum
die quo aufugiit (D.B., i. 376b).

About this entry, as Mr Freeman observed, 'there can be no doubt'. But as the result of his careful
inquiry,8 he limited 'our positive knowledge', from Domesday, to this entry and to two in the text
of the Lincolnshire survey (364b-377). It is strange that he did not follow up the clue the
'Clamores' gave him. The relevant entry in the text of the Survey is duly found under the
Peterborough fief:

In Witham et Mannetorp et Toftlund habuit Hereward xii. bovatas terræ ad
geldum.... Ibi Asuert [sic] homo abbatis Turoldi habet, etc....

Berew[ita] hujus M. in Bercaham et Estou i. carucata terræ ad geldum. ... Ibi
Asford habet, etc....

In Estov Soca in Witham iiii. bovatæ terræ et dimidia ad geldum.... Ibi Asfort
de abbate habet, etc.... (i. 346).

This is the 'terra Asford' referred to in the 'Clamores', and, as amounting to 31⁄16 carucates, it is
clearly the 'iii. carucatas' assigned in our list to 'Ansford'. Thus, through his successor Ansford,
we have at last run down our man; Hereward was, exactly as is stated by Hugh 'Candidus', a
'man' of the Abbot of Peterborough; and his holding was situated at Witham on the Hill,9 not far
from Bourne, and, at Barholme-with-Stow a few miles off, all in the extreme south-west of the
county. This is the fact for which Mr Freeman sought in vain, and which has eluded Professor
Tout, in his careful life of the outlaw for the Dictionary of National Biography.

We are now in a position to examine the gloss of Hugh 'Candidus', showing how 'Baldwin Wake'
possessed the holdings both of Hugh and of Ansford:10

Primus Hugo de Euremu. Baldwinus Wake tenet in Depinge, Plumtre, et
Stove feoda duorum militum.... Et præterea dictus Baldewinus tenet feodum
unius militis in Wytham et Bergham de terra Affordi. Et prædictus
Baldewinus de predictis feodis abbati de Burgo debet plenarie respondere de
omni forensi [servitio].

Here we see how the legendary name and legendary position of Hereward were evolved. The
Wakes, Lords of Bourne, held among their lands some, not far from Bourne, which had once
been held by Hereward. Thus arose the story that Hereward had been Lord of Bourne; and it was
but a step further to connect him directly with the Wakes, by giving him a daughter and heir
married to Hugh de Evermou, whose lands had similarly passed to the Lords of Bourne. The
pedigree-maker's crowning stroke was to make Hereward himself a Wake,11 just as Baldwin fitz
Gilbert (de Clare) is in one place transformed into a Wake.12 The climax was reached when the
modern Wakes revived the name of Hereward, just as 'Sir Brian Newcome of Newcome' set the
seal to his family legend by giving his children 'names out of the Saxon calendar'.

Returning to Hereward himself, we find Mr Freeman writing (of the spring of 1070):

At this moment we hear for the first time of one whose mythical fame
outshines all the names of his generation, and of whom the few historical
notices make us wish that details could be filled in from some other source
than legend.... Both the voice of legend and the witness of the great Survey
agree in connecting Hereward with Lincolnshire, but they differ as to the
particular spot in the shire in which he is to be quartered. Legend also has
forgotten a fact which the document has preserved, namely, that the hero of
the fenland did not belong wholly to Lincolnshire, but that he was also a
landholder in the distant shire of Warwick. But the Survey has preserved
another fact with which the legendary versions of his life have been specially
busy. Hereward, at some time it would seem, before the period of his exploits,
had fled from his country.13

Let us first dismiss from our minds the alleged fact as to Warwickshire. There is absolutely
nothing to connect the Count of Meulan's tenant there with the Lincolnshire hero; indeed Mr
Freeman admits in his appendix 'that the Hereward of these entries may be some other person' (p.
805). Legend had an excellent reason for ignoring this alleged 'fact' as had 'romances' for having
'perversely forgotten' to mention the deeds or the fate of William Malet in the Isle (Ibid., p. 473).
We must also dismiss the 'fact'—'undoubted history' though it be (Ibid., p. 805)—of Hereward's
'banishment' at some time between 1062 and 1070. For the Survey gives no date; it merely
speaks of 'die quâ aufugiit' (i. 376b), which phrase, in the absence of evidence to the contrary,
must be referred to his escape from the 'Isle',14 when (1071) in the words of Florence, 'cum
paucis evasit'. This at once explains the Domesday entry (ante, p. 160), for he would, of course,
have forfeited his holding before that date.

'But leaving fables and guesses aside,' in Mr Freeman's words, 'we know enough of Hereward to
make us earnestly long to know more' (p. 456). My proof that the English hero was a 'man' of the
Abbot of Peterborough explains why 'Hereward and his gang', as they are termed in the
Peterborough Chronicle, 'seem', Mr Freeman is forced to admit, 'to be specially the rebellious
tenants of the Abbey', as distinct from the Danes and the outlaws (p. 459). And the vindication,
on this point, of Hugh Candidus' accuracy makes one regret that Mr Freeman, though eager for
information as to Hereward, ignored so completely that writer's narrative. It is in absolute
agreement with the Peterborough Chronicle, Mr Freeman's own authority, but records some
interesting details which the Chronicle omits.15 These place Hereward's conduct in a somewhat
different light, and suggest that he may really have been loyal to the Abbey whose 'man' he was.
His plea for bringing the Danes to Peterborough was that he honestly believed that they would
overthrow the Normans, and that the treasures of the church would, therefore, be safer in their
hands. He may perfectly well have been hostile to the Normans, and yet faithful to the Abbey so
long as Brand held it; but the news that Turold and his knights were coming to make the Abbey a
centre of Norman rule against him16 would drive him to extreme courses. Professor Tout has
made some use of Hugh, but says, strangely, that 'the stern rule of the new Abbot Turold drove
into revolt the tenants', when his rule had not yet begun.

Again, there is now no doubt where Hereward ought 'to be quartered'. Two other places with
which the Domesday survey connects him are Rippingale and, possibly, Laughton to the north of
Bourne. Living thus on the edge of the fenland, he may well have been a leader among 'that
English folk of the fenlands' who rose, says the Peterborough Chronicle, in the spring of 1070, to
join the Danish fleet and throw off the Norman yoke. And the prospect of being ousted from his
Peterborough lands by a follower of the new French abbot would have added a personal zest to
his patriotic zeal.

Mr Freeman, followed by Professor Tout,17 holds that the story in the false Ingulf is not to be
wholly cast aside, as it may contain some genuine Crowland tradition;18 but he has not accurately
given that story. It might hastily be gathered, as it was by him, that it was Hereward's mother-in-
law who 'very considerately takes the veil at the hands of Abbot Ulfcytel', whereas it was,
according to the Gesta, his wife who did this. The Gesta version, he writes, 'of Turfrida going
into a monastery to make way for Ælfthryth is plainly another form of the story in Ingulf, which
makes not herself but her mother do so'. But if the Historia Ingulphi (pp. 67-8) be read with care,
it will be seen that 'mater Turfridæ' should clearly be 'mater Turfrida', the reading that the sense
requires. So there is here no opposition, and Ingulf merely follows the Gesta version.

As for the honour of Bourne, it can be shown from the carta of Hugh Wac in 1166, from our list
of knights, and from the Pipe-Roll of 1130, to have been formed from separate holdings and to
have descended as follows:

113819
(see p. 359)

The Psuedo-Ingulf's version runs:

It will be seen how skilfully the author of this famous forgery brings in the names of real people
while confusing their connection and their dates. Richard de Rullos, for instance, was living

shortly before 1130, yet is here described as living under the Conqueror, though represented as
marrying the great granddaughter of a man who was himself in the prime of life in 1062. The
whole account of him as an ardent agriculturist, devoted to the improvement of live-stock and the
reclamation of waste, is quaintly anachronistic; but the fact of his being a friend and benefactor
to Crowland is one for which the writer had probably some ground. For my part, I attach most
importance to his incidental statement that the daring deeds of Hereward the outlaw, 'adhuc in
triviis canuntur', an allusion, perhaps unnoticed, to a ballad history surviving, it may be, so late as
the days when the forgery was compiled.

But, leaving Hereward, no entries in this list are more deserving of notice than those which bring
before us the famous name of Nevile:

Gislebertus de Nevila [tenet] ii. carrucatas in Lincolnescira, et servit Abbatiæ
pro ii. hidis et inde inventi i. militem (p. 171).

Radulfus de Nevila [tenet] x. carrucatas in Lincolnescira et i. hidam et
dimidiam in Hamtonascira et servit se tercio milite (p. 175).

Hugh Candidus wrote of the former:

Heres Galfridi de Nevile tenet in Lincolnescire, scilicet in Waletone [sic]
justa Folkingham, et Yoltorpe duas carrucatas terra et inde facit plenum
servitium unius militis (p. 59).

With this clue we are enabled to detect Gilbert de Nevile in that 'Gislebertus homo Abbatis', who
held of the Abbot (D.B., i. 345b) at 'Walecote' (Walcot near Folkingham). So also Hugh
'Candidus' writes of the other Nevile fee:

Heres Radulfi de Nevile tenet decem carrucatas terræ in Lincolnshire, scilicet
in Scottone Malmetone; et in Norhamtonscire unam hidam et dimidiam,
scilicet in Holme, Rayniltorp, et inde facit plenum servitium trium militum
(p. 55).

It is, then, Ralf de Nevile that we have in that 'Radulfus homo Abbatis', who held of him at
'Mameltune', and 'Rageneltorp' with 'Holm' in Domesday (i. 345b, 346)—Manton, with
Raventhorpe and Holme (near Bottesford, co. Linc.)—for Hugh, of course, has blundered in
placing the two latter places in Northamptonshire.20 The Testa, more exact, enables us to add
Ashby to Holme and Raventhorpe as part of one estate, held as a single knight's fee. Scotton, in
the same neighbourhood, was held by 'Ricardus' in Domesday, but, in the hands of Nevile's heirs,
represented a fee and a third.

Between Ralf and Gilbert de Nevile on fo. 346 we find 'Gislebertus homo Abbatis' holding ten
bovates at Hibaldstow. This was the 'Gislebertus Falvel' of our return, not Gilbert de Nevile.

The last Domesday name I shall identify is that of the Abbot's under-tenant 'Eustacius', who held
of him at Polebrook, Clapton (Northants), and Catworth (Hunts). He was, I believe, the same as
that Eustace who held land, as a tenant-in-chief, at Polebrook, Northants, and with that Eustace
the sheriff ('Vice-comes') who held (at Catworth, Hunts) also in capite. Indeed the abbot's tenant

is identified with the latter in the story of the foundation of Huntingdon Priory (Mon. Ang., vi.
78), where, as in our list, we find that his two knights' fees soon passed to Lovetot.21

We may learn from this identification that two different tenants-in-chief and at least one under-
tenant may prove to be all one man, just as, on the other hand, we found three distinct Rogers
among the Domesday under-tenants of the Abbot. An additional conclusion is suggested by the
name 'Eustachius de Huntendune', given to this sheriff in the Inquisitio Eliensis.22 For we find
Picot, the Sheriff of Cambridgeshire, similarly styled in Domesday (i. 200), 'Picot de
Grentebrige'. 'Ilbert de Hertford', I think, was the Sheriff of Hertfordshire,23 and Hamo, a
contemporary sheriff of Kent, attests a charter as 'Hamo de Cantuaria'. Turold, sheriff of
Lincolnshire, is found as Turold 'of Lincoln' (see p. 255), and Hugh, sheriff of Dorset, as Hugh of
'Wareham', while Walter and Miles 'of Gloucester', Edward and Walter 'of Salisbury', are also
cases in point. Hugh 'of Leicester' was sheriff of Leicestershire temp. Henry I, while Turchil 'de
Warwic' (D.B., i. 240b) may possibly have owed that appellation to the fact that his father
Ælfwine was sheriff of Warwickshire. Enough, in any case, has been said to show that it was a
regular practice for sheriffs to derive, as often did earls, their styles from the capital town of their
shire.

1 Society of Antiquaries' MS. 60.

2 Ed. Camden Society.

3 Norman Conquest, iv. 219. We know aliunde that 'Picot filius Colsuani' was the son of Colswegen of Lincoln. It
would seem to be of this estate that we read in the 'Clamores': 'Abbas de Burg clamat iiii. bov. terræ in Risun terra
Colsuani, et Wap' testatur quod T.R.E. jacuerunt in æcclesia Omnium Sanctorum in Lincolia.'

4 Society of Antiquaries' MS. 60. Printed by Stapleton ut supra.

5 But possibly the Robert d'Oilli of our list may be the first Robert (who, as 'Robertus' in Domesday, held Cranford
of the Abbot), while the tenant of that name in 1125 may be the second Robert, entered in the Pipe-Roll of 1130, and
living temp. Stephen.

6 William Rufus, i. 571. He makes it 'Evermouth' in the Norman Conquest.

7 Envermeu lay on the coast some 19 miles to the east of Dieppe.

8 'The legend of Hereward' (Norman Conquest, iv. [1st Ed., 805).

9 With its hamlet of Manthorpe and Toft with Lound.

10 Ed. Sparke Historiæ Anglicanæ Scriptores [1723].

11 Professor Tout throws out the unlucky suggestion: 'the Wake, i.e. apparently the watchful one'.

12 See the new Monasticon on Deeping Priory, and the rubric to Baldwin's charter. The true parentage of Baldwin
fitz Gilbert will be shown infra in the paper on 'Walter Tirel and his wife'.

13 Norman Conquest (1st Ed.), iv. 455-6.

14 Norman Conquest (1st Ed.), iv. 484. Professor Tout, however, follows Mr Freeman, and accepts an earlier 'flight
from England' as a fact. One must therefore insist that 'the whole story has no historical basis'.

15 I am tempted, indeed, to suggest that Hugh may have had before him that lost local 'account of Hereward's
doings', which was inserted (but, according to my own view, in an abbreviated form) into the earlier chronicle,
according to Professor Earle (see Norm. Conq., iv. 461, note 3). This solution would explain everything, and would,
if accepted, greatly increase the importance of Hugh's chronicle.

16 Cf. William of Malmesbury in loco.

17 Dictionary of National Biography.

18 Appendix on 'the Legend of Hereward', ut supra.

19 The names of the churches he bestowed on the Priory illustrate the constituents of the Honour of Bourne.

20 The name of Ralf de Nevilla occurs in full in the Lincolnshire 'Clamores' (i. 376b), annihilating the old assertion
that this famous surname is nowhere found in Domesday. (See my letter in Academy, xxxvii. 373.)

21 It is specially interesting to trace his holding at Winwick, Hunts, which then lay partly in Northants. As
'Eustachius' he held in capite at 'Winewincle' (i. 228), as 'Eustachius Vicecomes' at 'Winewiche' (i. 206), and as
'Eustacius', a tenant of the Abbot, at 'Winewiche' (i. 221). In the first two cases his under-tenants are given as
'Widelard[us]' and 'Oilard[us]', doubtless the same man. For 'Winewincle' we should probably read 'Winewicke'. See
also p. 222, infra.

22 Inq. Com. Cant., Ed. Hamilton, p. 111.

23 Ibid., 56, 192.

THE WORCESTERSHIRE SURVEY
(Temp. Henry I)

We have, in the case of the see of Worcester, the means of testing some of the changes which
took place among its tenants within a generation of Domesday. This is a survey of that portion of
its lands which lay within the county of Worcester. Although printed by Hearne in his edition of
Heming's Cartulary (fos. 141, 141d), it escaped notice, I believe, till I identified it myself in
Domesday Studies (p. 546). As it follows immediately on the transcript of the Domesday Survey
of the fief, the fact that it represents a later and distinct record might, at first sight, be overlooked.

In spite of the importance of Heming's Cartulary in its bearing on the Domesday Survey, the
documents of which it contains the transcripts have been hopelessly confused and misunderstood.
Professor Freeman, dealing with them, came to utter grief,1 and as for Mr De Gray Birch, he not
only took this Survey temp. Henry I to be a portion of Domesday itself, which 'should be collated
with the original MS. at the Record Office',2 but even repeated Ellis's blunder,3 that the names in
a document temp. Bishop John [1151-7]4 represent 'the list of jurors for the Hundred of
Oswaldeslaw' at the Domesday Survey.5

From a writ entered on fo. 136 we may infer that there had been some dispute between the
Sheriff and the Church of Worcester as to the number of hides in the county for which the latter
should be rated.6 This Inquest or Survey was the consequence of that dispute, and resulted in the

issue of the writ. Its date is roughly determined by the facts that Urse d'Abetot was dead when it
was made, while the Count of Meulan is entered as a tenant, so that we may probably date it as
later (at the earliest) than 1108, and previous to the death of the Count of Meulan in July 1118.7

Let us now compare, Manor by Manor, the earlier with the later Survey:

Domesday Survey temp. Henry i

Chemesege Kemesige
Bishop [13] Bishop 13
Urso 7 Walter de Beauchamp 9
Roger de Laci 2
Walter Ponther 2 Hugh Puiher 2
—— ——
24 24

Wiche Wike
Bishop 3¾ Bishop 3
Urso 9¾ Walter de Beauchamp 10½
Robert Despenser ½ Nicholas (de Beauchamp?) ½
Osbern fitz Richard 1 Hugh fitz Osbern 1
—— ——
15 15

Fledebirie Fledebyri
Bishop 7 Bishop 3
Bishop of Hereford 5 Bishop of Hereford 5
Urso 12
Robert Despenser 5 Walter de Beauchamp 22
Alricus archid[iaconus] 1
Roger de Laci 10 Hugh de Laci 10
—— ——
40 40

Breodun Bredune
Bishop 10 Bishop 13
Monks 4 Monks 4
Ælricus Archd. 2
Urso 16 Walter de Beauchamp 16
Durand 2 Gile (? bertus) 1

Brictric fil' Algar (in king's hands) 1 King 1
—— ——
35 35

Rippel et Uptun Rippel et Uptun
Bishop 13 Bishop 14
Ordric 1
Siward 5
Roger de Laci 3 Hugh de Laci 3
Urso 1
Ralph de Bernai (in king's hands) 1 Walter de Beauchamp 6
Brictric fil' Algar (in king's hands) 1 King 2
—— ——
25 25

Blochelei Bloccelea

Bishop 25½ Bishop 22
Richard 2 Bishop 2
Ansgot 1½ Walter de Beauchamp 5
Stephen fil' Fulcred 3 'Dæilesford' 3
Hereward 5 'Eunilade' 5
Monks 1 Monks 1
—— ——
38 38

Tredingtun Tredintun
[Bishop 17] Bishop 17
Monks 2 Monks 2
Gilbert fil' Thorold 4 'Langedun' 4
—— ——
23 23

Norwiche Northewike
Bishop 3½ Bishop 6½
Urso 7¾ Walter de Beauchamp 10
Ordric 4¼
Alric Arch' 1
Walter Ponther 7½ Hugh Puiher 7½
Herlebaldus 1 King 1

—— ——
25 25

Ovreberie cum Penedoc Werebyri et Penedoc
The Church of Worcester 6 6

Seggesbarne Segesberewe
The Church of Worcester 3 3

Scepwestun Scepwestune
The Church of Worcester 2 2

Herferthun cum Wiburgestoke Herfortune cum Wiburga Stoke
The Church of Worcester 3 3

Grimanleh Grimeleage
The Church of Worcester 2 2
Robert Despencer 1 Walter de Beauchamp 1
—— ——
3 3

Halhegan cum Bradewesham Hallhagan cum Bradewasse
The Church of Worcester 1 [The Church of Worcester 1]
Duo Radmanni 2 Walter de Beauchamp 1½
Roger de Laci 3½ Roger de Laci 3½
Walter de Burh ½ Count of Meulan 1
Hugh de Grentmesnil ½
—— ——
7½ 7

Cropetorn cum Neothetune Croppethorne

Church of Worcester 14 Monks 15
Robert Despencer 11 Walter de Beauchamp 9
Urso 6 Robert Marmion 7
Abbot of Evesham 9 Abbot of Evesham 9
[Ibid. 10] Ibid. 'quiete a geldo' 10
—— ——
50 50

Total for Oswaldslaw Hundred

Hides Tenants Heming's Total

(ut supra) (ut supra) 'He sunt ccc. hide ad
24 Bishop 93½ Osuualdes lauues
hundret.'
15
40 Monks 39
35 Walter de 90 'Episcopus habet
Beauchamp in
25 King 4 dominio' xciiii.
38 Hugh Puher 9½ 'Monachi' xl.
23 Hugh de Laci 13 'Walterus de xx.8
Bealcamp'
25 Roger de Laci 3½
24 Robert Marmion 7 'Alii barones' lxiii.
50 Bishop of 5 'Rex' iii.
Hereford
— Abbot of 19
Evesham
299 Hugh fitz Osbern 1 72½
Count of Meulan 1
Gile (?bertus) 1
Alii 12
Nicholas (? de ½ 'Quiete apud x.
Beauchamp) Hamtun a geldo'
———— ——
299 230

Huerteberie Heortlabyri
Church of Worcester 20 Bishop 15
Walter de Beauchamp 5
——
20

Vlwardelei Wlfwardile
Church of Worcester 5 Monks 5

Stoche Stoka
Church of Worcester 10 Monks 10

Alvievecherche Ælfithe cyrce
Church of Worcester 13 Bishop 13

Clive cum Lenc Clive cum Leng
Church of Worcester 10½ Monks 10

Fepsetenatun Fepsintune
Church of Worcester 5 Monks 1
Walter Ponther 19 Hugh Puiher 19
Roger de Laci 5 Hugh de Laci 5
—— ——
11 7

Heanbyri
Hambyrie
Church of Worcester 14 Bishop 13½
Walter de Beauchamp ½
—— ——
14

Ardolvestone et Cnistetone Eardulfestun et Cnihtetun
Church of Worcester ('de victu 15 Monks 15
monachorum')

Total 'Summa in Kinefolka'
Bishop 41½ 'Episcopus in xli.'
dominio
Monks 41 'Monachi xli.'
Walter de Beauchamp 5½ 'Walterus de vi.'
Bealcamp
Hugh de Laci 5 'Hugo de Laci v.'
Hugh Puiher 1 'Hugo Puiher i.'
—— ——
94 94

In Oswaldeslaw 299

Outside ditto 94
——
393

Summa hidarum, quas episcopus habet in toto vicecomitatu est ccc. et quater
xx. et xvii. cum his quas Abbas de Evesham tenet de Oswaldes Lauue.10

It will be seen that of these 397 hides only 393 are accounted for above. The explanation is this.
Of the five hides held in 'Fepsintune' by the Church of Worcester in Domesday, only one is
entered in the above list, the other four being wholly omitted, both in the list itself and in the
total. These four omitted hides bring up the 393 to 397, the exact sum that we have to account
for.

If the Manors in the above Survey are examined with care seriatim, it will be found that they bear
manifest witness to the aggressions of Urse d'Abetot, who, we may gather from this Cartulary,
was the bête noire of the Church of Worcester. The various extensions of his Domesday holdings,
as at 'Fledebyrie', where twelve hides had been increased to twenty-two, were partly due to the
accession of the lands he inherited from his brother, but partly also to his absorption of the lands
of other tenants and of portions of the episcopal demesne. All the benefit of these accessions
passed to his son-in-law and successor, Walter de Beauchamp.

But perhaps the most important information that this Survey gives us is to be found in the light it
throws on the succession to Robert 'Dispensator'. That he was brother to Urse d'Abetot is, of
course, generally known. His relationship to the Marmions is the crux. I deal with it under the
Lindsey Survey,11 which shows us his Lincolnshire fief in the hands of Roger Marmion. In the
present Survey we find that of the seventeen hides and a half which Robert Dispensator had held,
at the time of Domesday, from the Bishop, only seven were held by Robert (not Roger) Marmion
when this document was compiled, the rest being held by Walter de Beauchamp. We thus learn
that here, as in Leicestershire, the fief had been divided between the two.12

But this Survey further tells us—if we may trust the text—that, in this succession, Roger
Marmion had been preceded by Robert. One may throw it out as a possible suggestion that, in
addition to the wife of Walter de Beauchamp, Urse d'Abetot may have had a daughter who
married Robert Marmion.13 On the forfeiture of his son Roger, such a daughter would have
pressed her claim, and, though the inheritance of Urse himself may, by special favour, have been
regranted to Walter, she may have obtained a share of the fief of her uncle, Robert 'Dispensator'.
But this can only be conjecture.

Of the other points of family history on which this Survey throws light, one may mention that
Hugh 'Puher' had succeeded Walter 'Ponther', that Osbern fitz Richard (of Richard's Castle) had
been succeeded by his son, Hugh fitz Osbern; and that though, as in 1095,14 the name of Hugh de
Laci supplants that of his brother Roger, yet that, if we can trust the text, Roger had in one Manor
been allowed to retain his holding, in accordance with a policy which is believed to have been
practised, namely, that of keeping a hold, however small, on the forfeited. The name of the Count
of Meulan also, the supplanter of Grentmesnil, will be noticed, and that of a 'Nicholas', whom, as
the successor in a small holding of Robert Despencer, one might perhaps be tempted to identify
with the mysterious Sheriff of Staffordshire, Nicolas de Beauchamp.

There are fragments of two other early surveys relating to Worcestershire, which, as they contain
the names of Walter and of William de Beauchamp respectively, may be roughly assigned to the
reigns of Henry I and of Stephen. The first, which is found in an Evesham Cartulary,15 is mainly
an abstract of Domesday, but contains a later and valuable analysis of Droitwich, with an
important reference to the Exchequer. The other16 begins in the middle of a survey of what seems
to be the Church of Worcester's fief, records the lands held, as under-tenant, by William de
Beauchamp, and shows us the Domesday fief of Ralf de 'Todeni' in the hands of his heir, Roger
de 'Toeni'.

Droitwich

Hee sunt x. hidæ in Wich'. De Witton' petri corbezun ii. hidas. De feodo
sancti Dionysii Ricardus corvus et Willelmus filius Oueclini tenent i. hidam.
De sancto Guthlaco Willelmus filius Ricardi tenet i. hidam. De Johanne de
Suthlega Ricardus filius Roberti tenet i. hidam. De Pagano filio Johannis
Godwi tenet dimidiam hidam. De Waltero de bello campo Theobaldus et
petrus tenent dimidiam hidam. De la Berton' de Gloucestra [see Glouc.
Cartu.] Randulf filius Ringulfi tenet dimidiam hidam. De monachis
Gloucestrie Baldwinus et Lithulfus dimidiam hidam. De Comite Warewice
Randulfus et Essulf filii Ringulf tenent iii. virgatas. De Waltero del Burc
Randulf et Essulf dimidiam hidam. De Westmonasterio Theobaldus et
Walterus fil' Thorald i. hidam. De Almega fil' Aiulfi et mater ejus i. hidam. De
Battona Aiulfus presbyter i. virgatam. De Wichebold Rogerus de Bolles i.
virgatam. De monachis fil' Grim tenet i. virgatam. De Kinefare et Douerdale
i. virgatam. Alewi caure et socii ejus dimidiam virgatam.15a

H[oc] debet computari ad Scacarium Regis vicecomiti Wirecestrie. Habes x.
hidas ad Danegeld et Wasto forestæ ii. hidas.

Et in Ederesfeld vi hid[æ]. Et in happeworda i. hid[a]. Et in Biselega i. hid[a].
Et in Burlega i. hyda.

Fragment of a Survey subsequent to 1130 and perhaps circa
1150

(Cott. MS. Vesp., B. xxiv. fo. 8.)

... manerio de hambyry. Estona Ric' dimidiam hidam. In hundredo de Camele.
In Waresleia v. hidæ de manerio de hertlebery. Summa quater xx. et xiii.
hidæ.

In hundredo de persora habet ecclesia de Westmustier has terras quas tenet
Willelmus de bello campo. Hekintona iii. hidæ et iii. virgatæ. Chaddesleia ii.
hidæ. Langeduna Osmundi i. hida et dimidia. Colleduma iii. hidæ et iii.

virgatæ. Graftona Ebrandi i. hida et iii. virgatæ. Flavel et pidelet v. hidæ.
Newentona x. hidæ. Broctona Inardi iii. hidæ. Pidelet radulfi iii. hidæ.
Berford v. hidæ. Branefford i. hida. Wicha Inardi iii. hidæ. Burlingeham ii.
hidæ et i. virgata. Cumbrintona ii. hidæ. Poiwica Willelmi de bello campo i.
hida. Newebolt i. hida. Medeleffeld i. hida de poiwica. Ad bergam i. hida.
Olendene i. hida. Arleia i. virgata. Poiwica Inardi i. hida. Summa lx. hidæ et
dimidia.

In predicto hundredo de persora feudum Abbatis persore. Belega xxi. hidæ.
Branefford i. hida. Wadberga iii. hidæ et dimidia. Cumbrintona i. hida et
dimidia. Lega Ricardi dimidia hida. Walecote et torendune i. hida et dimidia.

In hundredo de Leisse tenet idem Willelmus Chirchlench iiii. hidas de abbatia
de Evesham. Croulega v. hidas de feudo Osberti filii hugonis.

In hundredo de Clent. Belua viii. hidæ de feudo folwi paganelli. Salawarpa v.
hidæ de feudo Rogeri Comitis. Item Salawarpa i. hida de feudo episcopi
Cestrie. Chaluestona i. hida de feudo Roberti filii Archembaldi. Apud Wich
dimidiam hidam Gunfrei. Item apud Wich i. hidam de terra Sancti Guthlaci
quam Rodbertus filius Willelmi tenet. Item ibidem dimidiam hidam de
Cormell' quam Gilebertus tenet. Cokehulla ii. hidæ et dimidiam de feudo
regis. Hactona iii. hidæ de feudo episcopi baiocensis. Escreueleia i. hida.
Summa tocius cclxiiii. hidæ et dimidia et dimidia virgata.

Terra rogeri de toeney. Esla iii. hidæ. Bertona iii. hidæ et iii. virgatæ.
Alcrintona ii. hidæ. Linda ii. hidæ et ad halac i. hida. Mora hugonis i. hida et
dimidia. Werueslega ii. hidæ et dimidia. Alboldeslega ii. hidæ et dimidia.
Rudmerlega i. hida et dimidia. Estlega i. hida Geldans et una hida quieta.
Sceldeslega i. hida. Almelega Ricardi de portes xi. hidæ.

In the former of these two fragments we recognize in John of Sudeley the younger son of Harold,
son of Earl Ralf. It would be of interest if we might identify his tenant, Richard fitz Robert, with
the younger son of his brother, Robert. The succession in the tenancy of the Crowland hide (St
Guthlac's) needs explanation. In Domesday (176) Urse held Dunclent of Nigel the physician,
who held both here and at Droitwich under Crowland Abbey. It must have been through him at
Droitwich also that William fitz Richard became tenant, for Robert fitz William (who was clearly
the latter's son) held here of Walter de Beauchamp in the second fragment.

It is in tracing William de Beauchamp's succession, as under-tenant to his grandfather Urse, that
we find the chief interest of the second fragment. He has succeeded him, for instance, as tenant to
the Abbeys of Westminster, Pershore, and Coventry (the fief of the last having now become that
of 'the Bishop of Chester'). At Wadborough, however, it was Robert 'Dispensator' whom he had
succeeded as tenant of Pershore. In one case we find him holding of Robert fitz Erchembald,
whose Domesday predecessor we thus learn was William Goizenboded (177b). We may also note
his tenure of Madresfield (now Lord Beauchamp's seat)—the earliest mention, I think, of the
place—as a limb of Powick. Fulk Paynell, of whom William held at Beoley, had now succeeded
to the Domesday fief of William fitz Ansculf, whose tenant 'Robert' may have been Robert

'Dispensator'. Osbern fitz Hugh had similarly succeeded to the Richard's Castle fief held, in
Domesday, by his grandfather.

I append a partial comparison of Domesday with the Henry I survey so far as concerns
Droitwich, where property, owing to its value, was divided among many owners.

DROITWICH

Domesday Temp. Henry I

H. H.
Willelmus filius Corbucion (Witone) 2 Petrus Corbezun (de Witton) 2
Church of St Denis 1 'De feodo sancti Dionysii Ricardus
corvus et
Willelmus filius Oueclini' 1
De Sancto Guthlaco Nigellus 1 De Sancto Guthlaco Willelmus filius 1
Medicus Ricardi
Heraldus filius Radulfi Comitis 1 De Johanne de Suthlega Ricardus filius 1
Roberti
De Pagano filio Johannis Godwi ½
Urso tenet Witune in Wich et De Waltero de Bello Campo Theobaldus
Gunfrid et Petrus
de eo ½ ½
Æcclesia sancti Petri de Glou. ½ De la Berton de Gloucestra Randulf
filius
Ringulfi ½
In Wich est dimidia hida quæ De monachis Gloucestrie Baldwinus et
pertinet ad Lithulfus
aulam de Glou. ½ ½
De Comite Warewice Randulfus et
Essulfus
filii Ringulf ¾
De Waltero del Burc Randulf et Essulf ½
Ibi duo presbyteri [de De Westmonasterio Theobaldus et
Westmonasterio] Walterus
tenet i. hidam que nunquam geldavit 1 fil' Thorald 1
Isdem [Radulfus] tenent in Wich i. De Almelega fil' Aiulfi et mater ejus 1
hidam
de x. hidis[geldantibus] 1

1 See my paper 'An early reference to Domesday' (Domesday Studies, pp. 542-4).

2 Domesday Studies, p. 513; Domesday Book (S.P.C.K.), p. 305.

3 Introduction to Domesday, i. 19.

4 Domesday Studies, p. 547.

5 Domesday Book (S.P.C.K.), pp. 78, 305.

6 There was a similar dispute about the same time in the case of Abingdon Abbey and its possessions in Berkshire
(Abingdon Cart., ii. 1600).

7 This, however, as I have elsewhere shown must remain a presumption, as it is possible that, owing to the youth of
his heir, he may have been entered as nominal tenant for some time after his death (see p. 155).

8 MS. now destroyed here.

9 'Non geldat.'

10 p. 116.

11 Infra, pp. 149 et seq.

12 We are enabled by this Survey, and by the division it records, to carry up the history of Elmley, the original seat
of the Beauchamps, to Domesday itself. The great Manor of Cropthorne, by Evesham, was held by the Church of
Worcester. In Bengeworth, one of its 'members', Urse d'Abetot, had seized an estate of five hides (Heming's
Cartulary fo. 125b). His brother, Robert Despencer, had seized two other 'members', Charlton ('Ceorlatuna') and
Elmley (Ibid.). In Domesday we are merely told that Robert held eleven hides in Cropthorne. But the present Survey
fortunately mentions that the portion which fell to Marmion's share was seven hides in 'Charlton'. This leaves four
hides for Elmley, which, added to the five hides of Urse d'Abetot in Bengeworth, makes exactly the nine hides here
entered to Walter de Beauchamp. We thus learn how the Beauchamps became possessed of Elmley. And this
calculation is confirmed by the entry in the Testa (p. 41): 'Willelmus de Bello Campo ... in Elmeleg in dominico iiij.
hidas.'

13 It is worth noting that we find, in Domesday, both a Robert and a Walter holding of Urse in Worcestershire.

14 See p. 244 infra.

15 Harl. MS., 3,763, fo. 80.

15a Harl. MS., 3,763, fo. 80.

16 Cott. MS. Vesp., B. xxiv. fo. 8.

THE LINDSEY SURVEY
(1115-18)

This 'invaluable Survey', as Mr Stevenson has termed it,1 might be described as a miniature
Domesday for each of the Wapentakes in the three trithings into which Lindsey was divided. For
although drawn up, Wapentake by Wapentake, as is the Leicestershire Survey, Hundred by
Hundred, the lands within each Wapentake described are grouped under the names of the holders

of fiefs, instead of being entered Vill by Vill. It was doubtless compiled, like other surveys, in
connection with the assessment of the 'geld'.2

Remarkable from a palaeographic standpoint, as well as from the nature of its contents, the
record, which is found in a Cottonian MS. (Claud. C. 5), has been singularly unfortunate in its
editors. As Mr Greenstreet truly observed:

The indefatigable Hearne, seeing that the manuscript related to a very ancient
period of our history, and recognizing its great importance, printed it in the
Appendix to his 'Liber Niger', but he does not appear to have properly
examined either the question of the date of the writing, or the internal
evidence.... As a natural consequence of his superficial examination, he
associates it wrongly with the reign of Henry II.

Stapleton, of course, knew better than this, and assigned the survey at one time to circ. 1108,3 but
in his Rotuli Scaccarii Normanniæ4 to 1106-20. It was subsequently investigated and analysed
with great care by Mr Eyton, whose note-books, now in the British Museum, show that he
adopted the sound method of comparing it in detail with Domesday Book. After his death Mr
Chester Waters issued (1883) an annotated translation of the text, with an introduction, analysis,
etc., in which the place-names were carefully identified, and the same system of comparison with
Domesday adopted.5

It is, unfortunately, necessary to explain that Mr Waters in the table of contents described his
translation as 'from the Cotton MS., Claudius C. 5', and wrote on the opposite page:

This MS. engaged the attention of Thomas Hearne, the antiquary, who has
printed it amongst the additaments to his edition of the Liber Niger Scaccarii;
but Hearne was one of those industrious but uncritical antiquaries who had no
conception of the duties of an editor of the importance of accuracy.

Knowing the high opinion entertained of Mr Waters' works,6 I accepted his translation in all good
faith as 'from the Cotton MS.' and was, I confess, not a little startled to discover from Mr
Greenstreet's facsimiles that it was made not from the Cotton MS., but from that inaccurate
edition by Hearne, which Mr Waters had mentioned only to denounce. On fo. 4b a whole line,
containing three entries, was accidentally omitted by Hearne, and is, consequently, absent also
from Mr Waters' version. On collating the two, however, I found, to my great surprise, that
matters were even worse than this, and that Hearne's text was far less inaccurate than Mr Waters'
own, the erroneous figures found in the latter being almost always correctly given by the
'uncritical' Hearne. As for the version given by Mr Waters, even in the very first Wapentake, there
are three serious errors, five carucates being given as three, nine as seven, and eleven as two!
And for Bradley Wapentake (p. 27), his figures are so erroneous that, according to him, 'Radulf
Meschin alone had 42 cars. 6 bovs. in this Wapentake', though his real holding was only fifteen
cars. three bovs. With another class of resultant errors I shall have to deal below.

To the enterprise of Mr Greenstreet scholars were indebted for an édition de luxe of the record in
facsimile, which made its appearance shortly after the treatise of Mr Waters. Unfortunately, no
attempt was made in the appended literal translation to identify the names of places or persons,

while such a word as '[ap]pendiciis', which occasionally appears in the survey, is mistaken for a
place-name 'Pendicus'. The book enjoys, however, the great advantage of an index.

The identification of places and of persons in Mr Waters' treatise shows extraordinary
knowledge; but both Mr Eyton and Mr Waters had the provoking habit of making important
assertions without giving their authority. I expressed a wish in the Academy, at the time, that Mr
Waters would give us some clue as to his sources of information, but as he did not think fit to do
so, we have to test his statements as best we can for ourselves. Now we learn from him on p. 36
that 'Walter fitz William', a tenant at South Willingham, was 'brother of Simon mentioned above',
namely of 'Simon fitz William (ancestor to the Lords Kyme)'. This is impressive until we
discover that the actual words in the survey (as indeed in Hearne's text) are 'Walt[erius] fil[ius]
Walt[eri]i' (fo. 11 b).7 To an expert such a test as this will prove significant enough. But to turn
from an actual misreading of the text to cases in which are incorporated interlineations, not part
of the original text, but written in later times, we find Mr Waters—like other antiquaries who had
followed Hearne's text—stating that 'Ranulf [Meschin] is twice styled in the Roll Earl of Lincoln,
but there is no record of his creation, and no other authority for possession of the earldom' (p. 8).
The difficulty vanishes when we discover that this supposed style was a mere interlineation made
by a much later hand.8 So again we read on p. 30:

Richard, Earl [of Chester], has 6 cars. in Barnetby-le-Wold, where [William],
the constable of Chester, is his tenant [as his father was Earl Hugh's in
Domesday].

But on turning to Mr Greenstreet's facsimiles, we find that the survey had nothing about 'the
constable of Chester', the words 'constabularia [sic] Cestrie' being only a faint interlineation by a
later hand.

And even where a reference to the true text does not at once dispose of the matter, these
statements of Mr Waters are, on other grounds, open at times to question. He assumes, for
instance, that Hugh fitz Ranulf, who occurs as a landowner in the survey, was a younger son of
Ranulf Meschin, afterwards Earl of Chester (p. 12). No such son would seem to be known; and
this assumption, moreover, does violence to chronology. For the pedigree it involves is this:

Now William de Roumare was not old enough to claim his inheritance from
the King till 1122, and his half-brother, Ranulf, was some years younger
than he was, as the words of Orderic imply in 1140. Consequently Hugh,
the youngest brother, can have been only a boy in 1122. How then could he,
as Mr Waters alleges, have held a fief in right of his wife so early as 1115 or
thereabouts?

In this assumption, however, he only follows Stapleton, to whom he here
refers, and who relied on an abstract in the cartulary of Spalding (fol. 416 a,
b). This abstract which cannot, from its form, preserve the wording of the
original charter, runs:

Sciant tam presentes quam futuri quod Hugo frater Rannulfi
comitis Cestrie et Matild' uxor ejus, fil' filia [sic] Lucie
comitisse concesserunt, etc., etc.

Stapleton boldly rendered the obviously corrupt words as 'son and daughter-
in-law of the countess Lucia',9 and hence pronounced this Hugh to be 'a
married brother of the whole blood' to the second Randulf, Earl of
Chester.10 As he only knew their gift to Spalding to be 'prior to 1141', no
chronological difficulty was caused by this view; but the occurrence of
Hugh's name in the Lindsey Survey, as already in possession of his small
fief, at once raises the difficulty I have explained. The solution that occurs
to me is that the Hugh fitz Ranulf of our survey, and the 'Hugo frater
Ranulfi Comitis Cestrie' of the Spalding charter, was a brother, not of the
second but of the first Earl Ranulf, and that the words 'fil' filia Comitisse

Lucie' were introduced in error by the compiler, whose head was full of the
Countess Lucy, and who had here confused the two Earls Randulf.

Stapleton, Mr Waters has justly observed, was 'facile princeps of Anglo-
Norman genealogists'.11 Yet I venture to think that, as he here mistook a
brother of the first Earl Ranulf for a son, so he confused William Meschin,
another and better known brother, with William de Roumare, the Earl's
stepson, afterwards Earl of Lincoln. William Meschin was not merely a
considerable landowner in Lindsey, but had also estates in
Northamptonshire and Leicestershire, as our survey of those counties
show.12 Stephen, according to Stapleton, created him Earl of Cambridge.

Remembering the dictum of Dr Stubbs that 'Stephen's earldoms are a matter
of great constitutional importance', it is worth while to examine this
earldom of Cambridge.

In one of Stapleton's greatest essays, that on Holy Trinity Priory, York,13 he
writes of this William Meschin, that

By King Stephen he was made Earl of Cambridge, as we
learn from the following extract from a charter of Alexander,
Bishop of Lincoln, in 1139, founding the nunnery of
Haverholm, in the parish of Ruskington, of the order of St.
Gilbert of Sempringham. 'But this donation ... we have
confirmed ... by the testimony of Rannulph, Earl of Chester,
and of William, Earl of Cambridge, his brother' (p. 34).

The words in the original are:

Testimonio Rannulfi comitis Cestriæ et Willelmi comitis
Cantebrigiæ fratris ejus (Mon. Ang., v. 949).

Now, though Stapleton is positive on the point, speaking again of 'William
Meschin, Earl of Cambridge' (p. 35), and though this learned paper well
sustains his reputation, yet he has here beyond question gone astray. Earl
Randulf, first of his name, appears as deceased in the Pipe Roll of 1130. He
could not therefore have been the Earl Randulf of 1139, who was his son
and namesake. Therefore the latter's 'brother', the Earl of Cambridge, could

not have been William Meschin, who was his father's brother.14 A short
chart pedigree will make the matter clear:

The pedigree shows my solution of the mystery. The two brother-earls of
1139 are those who are found so constantly together, and who were jointly
concerned, next year, in the surprise of Lincoln, but who were really only
half-brothers, though they spoke of one another as 'frater'.

The identity of the 'Earl of Cambridge' is thus clearly established; but there
of course remains the question why he is not here styled 'Earl of Lincoln'.
Every mention of him as Earl of Lincoln is later, if this charter be rightly
dated, so that he may possibly have changed his style. It is really strange
that precisely as William, Earl of Lincoln, is here once styled Earl of
Cambridge, so William, Earl of Arundel, is twice styled Earl of Lincoln, as I
have shown in my Geoffrey de Mandeville (p. 324), though in that case also
the fact had never been suspected. It is most tempting, if rash, to suggest
that the reason why the Earl of Lincoln was at first Earl of Cambridge is

that the Earl of Arundel (Sussex) was at first Earl of Lincoln, and thus kept
him out of that title.

In any case an error has now been corrected, and one of Stephen's alleged
earls disposed of.

The question of the date of this interesting survey is no less puzzling than
important. Mr Greenstreet held that 'there is hardly any room for doubting'
that it was previous to 1109. This conclusion was based on a
misapprehension, and Mr Waters claimed to have 'established' the date as
'between March 1114 and April 1116' (pp. 2-4). In this conclusion he would
seem to have been anticipated by Mr Eyton, as is shown by that writer's
note-books,15 but I cannot accept the identical and somewhat far-fetched
argument on which they relied. They obtained their limit on the one hand
from a passage in 'Peter of Blois', and on the other from the fact that Robert,
the King's son, is entered in the roll as 'filius Regis', and 'was therefore not
yet Earl of Gloucester', whereas he was certainly Earl, they say, 'before
Easter, 1116', when he witnessed as Earl, a charter they both assign to that
date.

Of the latter date I disposed in my paper 'The Creation of the Earldom of
Gloucester',16 in which I showed that Robert did not become Earl till
several years later. The other evidence, if it cannot be disproved, cannot at
least, be relied on. For, without asserting that the chronicle assigned to
'Peter of Blois' is so daring a forgery as the 'Historia Ingulphi', of which it is
a 'continuatio', it must be plainly described as absolutely untrustworthy.
Apart from the passage on Cambridge University,17 we have a description
'Inclyti Comitis Leycestriæ Roberti tunc validissimi adolescentis,
burgensiumque suæ dictæ civitatis' in 1113, and of his presence, with his
knights, at the laying of the Abbey foundation stones next year.18 Now the
future Earl of Leicester was some nine years old at the time, and his father,
the Count of Meulan, lived till 1118. So also, about the year 1114 we meet
with 'Milonis Comitis Herfordensis', who did not become Earl of Hereford
till 1141, and whose father, Walter of Gloucester, was living long after
1114; while on the next page we find the notoriously false Countess Lucy
legend, with the additional blunder of converting her son, the Earl of

Lincoln, into her husband's brother!19 It is in the midst of all this that we
have the vital passage on which Mr Waters relies:

We know from the Continuator [sic] of Peter of Blois (p.
121) that Stephen and his elder brother Theobald were on a
visit to Henry I, at Oxford, at some period between March
7th and August 1st, 1114, when Theobald is described as
Count of Blois, and Stephen as 'pulcherrimus adolescens
dominus postea rex Anglorum'. It is manifest that at this date
Stephen was not yet Count of Moreton, so the Roll must be
later than March 7th, 1114 (p. 3).

The fact that this alleged visit is connected by 'Peter' with intervention in
favour of the Abbot of Crowland, will not lessen the suspicion under which
the evidence must lie. Crowland was guilty of 'hiring', Dr Stubbs has
severely observed, 'Peter of Blois, or some pretended Peter who borrows an
illustrious name, to fabricate for her an apocryphal chronicle'.20

The actual proof of the survey's date is minute, no doubt, but conclusive. In
the Lindsey Survey, 'the sons of Ragemer' (himself the Domesday under-
tenant) are found holding of Walter de Gant; therefore their father, at the
time of the survey, had been succeeded by them in this holding. But, as
'Rachmar, son of Gilbert', he is found attesting a charter of Maud, Walter de
Gant's wife, to Bridlington Priory, which is addressed to Thurstan,
Archbishop of York, and which therefore must be later at the very least than
his election, August 15, 1114. Therefore Ragemer was alive after that date,
and the survey, at the time of which he was dead, can consequently scarcely
be earlier than 1115. On the other hand, we can scarcely place it later than
the death of the great Count of Meulan in the summer of 1118,21 though, as
I have urged in the Genealogist, the lands he had held might still be
assigned to 'the Count of Meulan', till his fiefs were divided among his
sons, who were boys at the time of his death. On the whole we may safely
assign the survey to 1115-1118, and in any case it cannot possibly be later
than the close of 1120.

As, according to Stapleton, the best authority, it is in this survey that the
name of Marmion first appears in England, it may not be inopportune to

examine here the accepted pedigree of that house. In the Roger Marmion of
our survey we have its undoubted ancestor, but of Robert Marmion, who
appears on its opening folio as a tenant of Walter de Gant at Winteringham,
one cannot speak so positively. In Domesday Winteringham, as 12
carucates, was held of Gilbert de Gant by 'Robertus homo Gilberti' (354b):
in our Survey eleven22 of these carucates were held of Gilbert's son Walter
by Robert Marmion, and the twelfth in capite by Roger Marmion. Mr
Waters (p. 17) identifies the former with the Domesday under-tenant, which
is a tempting solution, were not the Domesday Robert also under-tenant at
Risby (which was held in our survey not by Marmion, but by Walter de St
Paul). It seems to me more probable that Robert, the under-tenant in our
survey, was, as Mr Waters, contradicting himself, elsewhere observes (p.
14), the son and heir of Roger. Yet of Roger Marmion's estate at Fulstow,
Mr Waters writes (p. 27): 'Roger's father, Robert Marmion, was tenant there
in Domesday of Robert Dispenser.' This would give us an interesting clue.
But on turning to Domesday (363b), we find that it is only one more
mistake of Mr Waters, its 'Robertus' being no other than Robert Dispenser
himself.23

Stapleton, who worked out the descent, held that Roger's son Robert, who
had succeeded by 1130, and who was slain in 1143, was father of the Robert
who died in 1218. I would rather interpolate another Robert between the
two:

The pedigree really turns on the charter of Henry III in 1249, to Philip
Marmion, confirming the royal charters to his ancestor. Mr Stapleton
declares that Henry inspected and confirmed

The charter which King Henry, his great-great-grandfather,
had made to Robert Marmyon, great-grandfather of Philip
Marmyon, of having warren in all his land in the county of
Warwick, and especially at Tamworth; and likewise of the

charter of King Henry, his uncle ['Avunculus noster' is the
reading transcribed on the rolls, obviously in error of 'atavus
noster'], which he had made to the said Robert of having
warren in all his land of Lindesay (Rot. Scacc. Norm., II.
cvi.).

This abstract is strangely inaccurate, considering that Stapleton had, clearly,
examined the Inspeximus24 for himself. Henry VI inspected and confirmed:

(1) The charter of Henry I, granting Robert Marmion
freewarren in Warwickshire (specially at Tamworth) as his
father had.
(2) The charter of Henry II (confirming the above charter), 'T.
Tom. Canc. apud Brugiam', and therefore granted in 1155.
(3) The charter of Henry III, who had inspected—
(a) 'Cartam quam Henr' rex avus [sic] noster [i.e.
Henry II] fecit Roberto Marmyon proavo Philippi
Marmyun';
(b) 'Cartam Henrici regis avunculi nostri quam
fecit Roberto'; and confirmed them as the charters,
'H. Regis avi nostri et H. regis avunculi nostri', to
Philip Marmion.

It is clear then that Henry III inspected the charter of his grandfather ('avus')
Henry II (not, as Mr Stapleton wrote, his great-great-grandfather'), in 1155,
to Robert Marmion, 'proavus' of Philip. This, it will be seen, could only be
the Robert whom I have inserted in the pedigree. Nor can Mr Stapleton's
'atavus' assumption be accepted in view of the facts. The 'avunculus' and
namesake of Henry III would duly have been the 'young king' Henry
(crowned 1170). If 'avunculus' is a clerical error, the word to substitute is

'avus'; but the careful way in which the charter distinguishes the King's two
predecessors is quite opposed to the idea that they were in both cases his
grandfather.

As against the evidence afforded us by the charter of Henry III, we have the
statements and documents relating to Barbery Abbey, a daughter of
Savigny. It is alleged that the house was first founded in 114025 by that
Robert Marmion who was slain at Coventry in 1143.26 Stapleton accepted
this without question. Yet, so far as documents are concerned, we have only
the charter of Robert Marmion (1181), in which he speaks of his father
Robert as beginning the foundation.27 If that father were indeed the Robert
who was slain in 1143, Stapleton's pedigree is duly proved as against that
which I derive from Henry the Third's charter. But for this identification we
have only, it would seem, the obiter dictum of the 'Gallia Christiana' editors,
while the fact that the first Abbot was appointed about 1177,28 combined
with the fact that Robert Marmion, in 1181, was avowedly completing that
foundation which his father's death had arrested, certainly seems to point to
his father's benefaction being then recent, and little previous to the said
appointment of the first Abbot. In that case his father would be not the
Robert who died in 1143, but a Robert who, as I suggest, came between the
two.29

Leaving now this question of pedigree, there is a theory as to the name of
Marmion which one cannot pass over in silence, because it has received the
sanction even of Stapleton. Writing on the date of the Lindsey Survey, that
eminent authority observes:

Robert Le Despenser [Dispensator] was brother of Urso de
Abbetot, whose other surname, Marmion, is equivalent in
Norman French to the Latin word Dispensator; and as
Robert Marmion died in 1107, it was probably in the
following year that this catalogue was written.30

His meaning, though clumsily expressed, as was sometimes the case, is that
the Latin 'Dispensator' represented the name 'Marmion'. This theory would
seem to be derived from the word 'Marmiton' (not 'Marmion') which means
not a 'Dispensator', but a scullion, the most despised of the menials

employed in the kitchen. There was indeed in old French a rare word
'Marmion', but according to Godefroy, it was equivalent to 'Marmot', the
name of the Marmoset. In any case, therefore, this illustrious surname,
immortalized by Scott

They hailed him Lord of Fontenaye,
Of Lutterworth and Scrivelbaye,
Of Tamworth tower and town

had nothing to do with 'Dispensator', but meant either a scullion or a
monkey, and was one of those nicknames that the Normans loved to
inexorably bestow on one another.

What was the actual relation of the Marmions to Robert 'Dispensator' is a
problem as yet unsolved. Mr Waters wrote:

It is generally believed that Scrivelsby and the rest of the
Honour of Dispenser came to the Marmions through the
marriage of Roger Marmion's grandson,31 Robert Marmion,
who was the husband of Matilda de Beauchamp, the grand-
daughter of Urso de Abitot, and grand-niece of Robert
Dispenser. But the Roll proves that Roger Marmion was the
immediate heir of Robert Dispenser (p. 14).

I know of no such general belief. Stapleton, to whom one would naturally
turn, had pointed out long before, in his 'Rolls of the Norman Exchequer',
that this survey proves Roger Marmion to have held the Lincolnshire fief of
Robert 'Dispensator',32 while those who have identified the latter magnate
with Robert 'Marmion' have traced the descent of Scrivelsby in the
Marmions even from the Conquest.33

In any case, as I wrote in my Ancient Charters (1888) of a document there
published:

The succession of Urse [de Abetot] to this [Lincolnshire] fief
is a genealogical discovery which throws a wholly new light
on the very difficult problem of the relation of Marmion to
Despenser, and is fatal to the assertion of Mr Chester Waters

that 'Roger Marmion was the immediate heir of Robert
Dispenser'.

Moreover, in the Leicestershire Survey,34 and still more in that of
Worcestershire,35 we have evidence that Robert's inheritance was shared
between Beauchamp and Marmion which points there also to descent
through Urse de Abetot. In my Geoffrey de Mandeville (pp. 313-5) I have
suggested that in their rivalry for Tamworth,36 the Marmions embraced the
cause of Stephen, and the Beauchamps that of Maud, their variance being
terminated under Henry II by a matrimonial alliance. Such a compromise
was common enough. It was agreed on in the case of Grantmesnil; it was
carried out at this very period in that of Fitzharding and Berkeley; it was
again resorted to at a later stage in the history of the house of Berkeley; it
was arranged in the case of Hastings; and it was repeated in that of Boleyn,
where the Butler inheritance was at stake.37

1 English Historical Review, v. 96.

2 I have discussed above (pp. 69-72) the bearing of its evidence on the problem of
Domesday assessment, so need not recur to the subject here.

3 See note 31 below.

4 Vol. II. p. xcvi.

5 A Roll of the Owners of Land in the parts of Lindsey ('Reprinted from the Associated
Architectural Societies Reports and Papers').

6 In consideration of which he received a pension on the Civil List.

7 There is a similar error on fo. 13, where the 'William fitz Aubrey' of Mr Waters proves to
be 'filius Albrede' (not Alberici).

8 Hearne duly prints it as an interlineation.

9 Rolls of the Norman Exchequer, II. clvi.

10 He further hazarded the erroneous conjecture that Roheis, Countess of Lincoln, was his
daughter.

11 Gundrada de Warrenne, p. 9.

12 See pp. 171, 179, infra.

13 pp. 1-237. Bound up in the York volume of the Royal Archæological Institute.

14 Stapleton indeed exposed himself unconsciously by stating on the very same page that
William Meschin's lands had passed to his heirs 'prior to 1138', so that he could not be the
Earl of 1139.

15 See on this point the important letters of Mr Greenstreet and Mr J. A. C. Vincent to the
Athenæum, May 9 and June 27, 1885.

16 Geoffrey de Mandeville, p. 420 et seq.

17 Ed. Gale, pp. 114, 115.

18 Ibid., pp. 118, 119.

19 Ibid., pp. 124, 125.

20 Lectures on Mediæval and Modern History, p. 148.

21 Survey of Lindsey, p. 2.

22 Mr Waters, in error, states two.

23 It is an illustration of the ignorance prevalent on early genealogy that even Mr Freeman
could write of 'Mr Chester Waters, than whom no man better deserves to be listened to on
any point of genealogy, especially of the Norman genealogy of the eleventh and twelfth
centuries' (English Historical Review, iii. 690).

24 Rot. Pat. 27 Hen. VI, part i, m 30.

25 Neustria Pia, 683.

26 Gallia Christiana (1874), xi. 452.

27 Neustria Pia, 881; Gall. Christ., xi., Instr. 86.

28 Gall. Christ., xi. 452.

29 Since this was written I have found that Mr C. F. R. Palmer, in his admirable little
treatise on the Marmion family (1875), duly inserts this intermediate Robert. Mr Palmer
has shown himself by far the best authority on the subject, and has printed a valuable
charter of Stephen to Robert Marmion.

30 Paper on 'Holy Trinity Priory, York', p. 208 note. This identification is accepted by no
less an authority than Mr A. S. Ellis (Domesday Tenants of Gloucestershire, p. 69).

31 i.e. according to Stapleton's pedigree.

32 And Mr Palmer independently had done the same in his History of the Marmions
(1865).

33 Lodge's Scrivelsby: the Home of the Champions.

34 See p. 174.

35 See p. 174.

36 It is certain that Tamworth originally belonged to Robert 'Dispensator', and equally
certain that it was held successively by Roger and Robert Marmion under Henry I.

37 See my Early Life of Anne Boleyn, pp. 25-7.

THE LEICESTERSHIRE SURVEY
(1124-29).

Asserting the importance of the Lindsey Survey, Mr Chester Waters
observed that 'this is the sole record of its kind which deals with the interval
between the completion of Domesday in 1086, and the compilation of the
Pipe-Roll of 1129-30, and that no similar return of the landowners of any
other county is known to exist' (p. 2). And, indeed, it would seem that the
survey to which I now address myself has hitherto remained unknown. It is
found in the form of a late transcript on an unidentified roll in the Public
Record Office.1

Comprising the whole of Gosecote Wapentake, and in part those of
Framland and Gartree, it retains for these divisions the Domesday name of
Wapentake—they are now 'Hundreds'—while subdividing them into small
'Hundreds', of which the existence seems to have been hitherto unsuspected.
Proceeding, like the I.C.C., 'Hundred' by 'Hundred', and Vill by Vill, it