is, from its nature, here open to suspicion.]
[Footnote 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).]
[Footnote 43: This same change of phrase is repeated four
times on two pages (pp. 4, 5).]
[Footnote 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.).]
[Footnote 45: Compare the I.C.C. version on p. 100, _infra._]
[Footnote 46: _Inq. Com. Cant._, pp. xviii, xix.]
[Footnote 47: 'Et dimidiam' [hidam] is omitted in B, and
(oddly enough) in Domesday itself.]
[Footnote 48: All three MSS. err here, as the reading should
clearly be 'dim. _virg._']
[Footnote 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.]
[Footnote 50: This is the I.E. and D.B. version. For 'extra
ecclesiam', the I.C.C. substitutes 'sine ejus [abbatis]
licentia'.]
[Footnote 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.]
[Footnote 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).]
[Footnote *: 'Commend' abbati' (D.B., ii 387 _b_).]
[Footnote 53: _Inq. Com. Cant._, 192-5. see paper on it,
_infra_.]
[Footnote 54: 'In soca et commendatione abbatis de eli'
(D.B., ii. 441).]
[Footnote 55: 'Soca et commendatione tantum' (D.B.).]
[Footnote 56: 'iiii. liberi homines soca et commendatione
tantum' (D.B.).]
[Footnote 57: 'T.R.E. ad socham' (D.B.).]
[Footnote 58: 'Recep'' (D.B., ii. 238).]
[Footnote 59: The _Breve Abbatis_ records 34.]
[Footnote 60: _Ibid._, 7.]
[Footnote 61: I.C.C., fo. 110 (_b_) 1. Cf. D.B., I. 199 (_a_)
2, and I.E., p. 110.]
[Footnote 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).]
[Footnote 63: 'Et in eadem villa iii. liberi homines ...
de quibus abbas non habebat nisi commendationem: soca in
kanincghala regis.']
[Footnote 64: 'Hanc terram tenuit godmundus homo comitis
Waltevi; soca vero remansit abbati ely' (p. 115).]
[Footnote 65: 'Unum liberum hominem unde abbas habet sacam et
socam tantum' (p. 140).]
[Footnote 66: _Domesday Studies_, p. 556.]
[Footnote 67: _Inq. El._, pp. 140, 141.]
[Footnote 68: _Domesday Studies_, p. 209.]
[Footnote 69: _Domesday Studies_, p. 187.]
[Footnote 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.]
[Footnote 71: _Archæological Review_, vol. i, p. 286.]
[Footnote 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'.]
[Footnote 73: See below, and _ante_, p. 17, note.]
[Footnote 74: _Key to Domesday_, p. 14.]
[Footnote 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]'.]
[Footnote 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.]
[Footnote 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.]
[Footnote 78: Here, again, Domesday is in error, reading _two_
and a half virgates, where the I.C.C. has _one_ and a half.]
[Footnote 79: These two entries are by a blunder in the
I.C.C. (see above, p. 23) erroneously rolled into one (of 1/3
virgate). In this case it is Domesday Book which corrects the
I.C.C, and preserves for us the right version.]
[Footnote 80: The I.C.C, which is very corrupt in its account
of this township, gives us a deficiency of 1 hide 0-1/2
virgates.]
[Footnote 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_'.]
[Footnote 82: The _blunder_ consists in treating 6-1/2 (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'.]
[Footnote 83: Eyton's _Notes on Domesday_, p. 12.]
[Footnote 84: _Ibid._, p. 13.]
[Footnote 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).]
[Footnote 86: See above, p. 27.]
[Footnote 87: _Antiquary_, June 1882, p. 242. See also
_Domesday Studies_, vol. i, p. 119.]
[Footnote 88: The I.C.C. _omits_ the king's Manor (7-1/4
hides, 8 ploughlands).]
[Footnote 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.]
[Footnote 90: 'Burgum de Grentebrige pro uno Hundredo se
defendebat.'--_D.B._, i. 189.]
[Footnote 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.]
[Footnote 92: Domesday reads 'iii.', and _Inq. Com. Cant._
'iiii.']
[Footnote 93: I.C.C. reads 'x.']
[Footnote 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).]
[Footnote 95: _Const. Hist._, i, 105.]
[Footnote 96: See below, p. 87.]
[Footnote 97: See also _Domesday Studies_, i, 117.]
[Footnote 98: _Domesday Studies_, i, 122-30.]
[Footnote 99: The fragments of the Hundred of Papworth and
North Stow, which it contains, are too small to enable us to
speak with certainty.]
[Footnote 100: Correcting the _Inq. Com. Cant._ by adding from
Domesday the royal Manors in Isleham and Fordham.]
[Footnote 101: Bedford, 1881.]
[Footnote 102: 'Huntedun Burg defendebat se ad geldum
regis pro quarta parte de Hyrstingestan hundred pro L.
hidis.'--_Domesday_, i, 203.]
[Footnote 103: Adjoining Manors held by the Abbot of Ely.]
[Footnote 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.]
[Footnote 105: There are five entries relating to Catworth
(fos. 205_b_, 206, 206_b_, 217_b_), 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.]
[Footnote 106: _Introduction to Domesday_, i, 134. The italics
are his own.]
[Footnote 107: _Const. Hist._, i, 99.]
[Footnote 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_.)]
[Footnote 109: Edgar spoke of it as three Hundreds.]
[Footnote 110: 'Unum hundret quod vocatur Oswaldeslaw in quo
jacent ccc. hidæ.'--_D.B._, i., 172_b._]
[Footnote 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.)]
[Footnote 112: D.B., i. 175_b._]
[Footnote 113: I make the aggregate 118-1/2 hides.]
[Footnote 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.]
[Footnote 115: Eyton's _Somerset Survey_, ii, 25.]
[Footnote 116: Eyton's _Dorset Domesday_, p. 14.]
[Footnote 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.]
[Footnote 118: _Domesday Studies_, p. 172.]
[Footnote 119: 'A New View of the Geldable Unit of Assessment
of Domesday.' _Ibid_., pp. 227-363, 561-619.]
[Footnote 120: _Archæological Review_, i, 285-95; iv, 130-40,
391.]
[Footnote 121: _Ibid._, iv, 325.]
[Footnote 122: A curious hint of the grouping of Vills is
afforded in Oxfordshire by Adderbury and Bloxham. Domesday
first gives us an assessment of 34-1/2 hides in the two, and
then 15-1/2 hides in Adderbury, making in all, for the two, 50
hides, the same as Banbury.]
[Footnote 123: This evidence is rendered available by the
useful _Notes on the Oxfordshire Domesday_, published by the
Clarendon Press in 1892.]
[Footnote 124: 40 + 5 + 5.]
[Footnote 125: 'Unam hidam et iii^{es.} virgatas et iii^{ciam.}
partem de i. virgata.']
[Footnote 126: 'Dimidiam hidam et iii^{ciam.} partem dimidiæ
hidæ.']
[Footnote 127: Lysons. So also Domesday: '_soco vero jacebat
in Stains_'.]
[Footnote 128: _Domesday Studies_, i. 120. See also _supra_,
p. 45, and the case of Northampton, _infra_.]
[Footnote 129: _Domesday_, i. 64_b._]
[Footnote 130: _English Historical Review_, 1889, iv. 729.]
[Footnote 131: _English Historical Review_, 1889, iv. 728-9.]
[Footnote 132: _Archæological Review_, iv. 313-27.]
[Footnote 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.]
[Footnote 134: _Genealogist_, N.S., vi. 160-1.]
[Footnote 135: _Archæological Review_, iv. 322.]
[Footnote 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.]
[Footnote 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.]
[Footnote 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.]
[Footnote 139: _Vide infra_, p. 149, _et seq._]
[Footnote 140: 'Suma iii. hundr' et vi. car. et vi. bov.']
[Footnote 141: 'Suma iiii. hundr' et x. car.' (a wrong
total).]
[Footnote 142: 'Summa iii. hundr' et v. car. et iiii. bov.']
[Footnote 143: See also on these Hundreds Mr Stevenson's
remarks in _English Historical Review_, v. 96, which have
appeared since I made these researches.]
[Footnote 144: This appears to be a clerical error. The actual
figures represent 'Hundreds'.]
[Footnote 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.]
[Footnote 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.]
[Footnote 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.
291_b_) that Leake (Notts) 'jacet in Pluntree Hund'.]
[Footnote 148: See D.B., i. fos. 298, 298_b_, and fo. 379.]
[Footnote 149: As Mr Pell did in the case of Clifton.]
[Footnote 150: _Vide infra_, p. 160.]
[Footnote 151: 'There is no trace of any,' writes Canon Taylor
(_Domesday Studies_, i. 74).]
[Footnote 152: As with _maenols_ and _trevs_ in North and
South Wales.]
[Footnote 153: Mr Pell tried to explain it by assuming that
the Leicestershire _carucates_ were really small virgates of
the _hida_ in question!]
[Footnote 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.]
[Footnote 155: See more below on this point.]
[Footnote 156: _English Historical Review_, v. 95.]
[Footnote 157: Mr Stevenson, moreover, should surely,
to obtain the meaning he wants, have extended _car_ as
'car[ucatarum]'.]
[Footnote 158: I also hold the formula 'T.R.E. erant ibi _x_
car[ucæ]' to refer to ploughs, not ploughlands.]
[Footnote 159: Note that the assessment of 2-5/8 carucates
represented 2-1/2 ploughlands, and that of 9-3/8 carucates
only 7 ploughlands. No relation, therefore, can be traced
here.]
[Footnote 160: _Conquest of England_, p. 121 note.]
[Footnote 161: _Ibid._, p. 276.]
[Footnote 162: _Chester Archæological Journal_, vol. v.]
[Footnote 163: 'De harieta Lagemanorum habuit isdem picot
viii. lib,' etc. (i. 189).]
[Footnote 164: _Domesday Studies_, i. 143-86.]
[Footnote 165: _Ibid._, 157.]
[Footnote 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.]
[Footnote 167: _Supra_, p. 74.]
[Footnote 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.]
[Footnote 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).]
[Footnote 170: _Supra_, pp. 51, 62.]
[Footnote 171: Compare the 'Reparto de la contribucion',
found in the Spanish village communities, the members of which
apportioned the assessment among themselves.]
[Footnote 172: _Key to Domesday_: Dorset, p. 14.]
[Footnote 173: The anomalous position of Rutland also was, of
course, a disturbing element.]
[Footnote 174: This low assessment is equally obvious in that
of the several Manors.]
[Footnote 175: Probably 1/27, as against about 1/6 for
Somerset and Dorset jointly.]
[Footnote 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.]
[Footnote 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'.]
[Footnote 178: See Stubbs, _Select Charters_, pp. 67-9, and
_Const. Hist._, i. 96-9.]
[Footnote 179: Select Charters, p. 67.]
[Footnote 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.']
[Footnote 181: _Select Charters_, p. 6.]
[Footnote 182: Thus, the first entry for East Anglia (ii.
109_b_) has 'de xx. solidis reddit xvi. d. in gelto.']
[Footnote 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.]
[Footnote 184: 'In hundredo de Tinghowe sunt xx. villæ ex
quibus constituuntur ix. lete, quas sic distinguimus.' Gage's
_Suffolk_, p. xii.]
[Footnote 185: _Select Pleas in Manorial Courts_ (Selden
Society), I., lxiii.--lxxvi.]
[Footnote 186: _Ibid._, p. lxxvi.]
[Footnote 187: 'De gelto v. sol'' (D.B., ii. 286_b_). 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.]
[Footnote 188: See p. 58.]
[Footnote 189: 'Wisbeche, quæ est quarta pars centuriatus
insulæ' (_Liber Eliensis_ p. 192).]
[Footnote 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. 119_b_). See also note
182.]
[Footnote 191: See _Domesday Studies_, p. 117.]
[Footnote 192: Reprinted from the _English Historical Review_,
October 1892.]
[Footnote 193: Ninth Report on Historical MSS., App. I, 38.]
[Footnote 194: _Domesday of St. Paul's_, p. iv.]
[Footnote 195: This is a slip. Drayton was in Middlesex, and
the words (which Mr Seebohm quotes) are 'cum _una_ hida de
solande'.]
[Footnote 196: I know of no authority for this form.]
[Footnote 197: The '_Lathes_' of Kent of course point in the
same direction.]
[Footnote 198: Professor Vinogradoff states, on the contrary,
that 'all are irregular in their formation'.]
[Footnote 199: _English Village Community_, pp. 54, 139, 396.]
[Footnote 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.]
[Footnote 201: _English Village Community_, 212 note.]
[Footnote 202: We might also compare the _droit de gîte_ on
the other side of the Channel.]
[Footnote 203: I am indebted for these identifications to Mr
Eyton's work.]
[Footnote 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.]
[Footnote 205: I am indebted for these identifications to Mr
Eyton's work.]
[Footnote 206: We should perhaps read this as explaining
the composition of the centuriatus, viz.: 'the priests, the
reeves, and six villeins from each Vill'.]
[Footnote 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.']
[Footnote 208: Whittlesford omitted, because in this Hundred
no lands were held or claimed by the Abbey.]
[Footnote 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.']
[Footnote 210: Wharton's _Anglia Sacra_, i. 339.]
[Footnote 211: Palgrave's _Commonwealth_, ii. 183.]
[Footnote 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.]
[Footnote 213: Only four, however, of the fourteen actually
swore: 'reliquos vero decem quietavit Willelmus abbas, qui
parati erant jurare'.]
[Footnote 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.]
[Footnote 215: His surname is there omitted, but his identity
is proved by Humphrey 'de Anslevilla' occurring elsewhere as
an under-tenant of Eudo.]
[Footnote 216: So I conclude from his _Introduction to
Domesday_, i. 22, note 2.]
[Footnote 217: _Inquisitio Comitatus Cantabrigiensis_, pp. 97
_et seq._]
[Footnote 218: Ed. Hamilton, pp. 184-9.]
[Footnote 219: _Ibid._, pp. 97, 101.]
[Footnote 220: C omits 'et'.]
[Footnote 221: Here the scribe of C, puzzled by the
evident corruption of the text from which he copied, read
'inv[enit]'.]
[Footnote 222: 'Toft' (rightly) in C.]
[Footnote 223: Chauelæi, C.]
[Footnote 224: Stanhard[us], B, C.]
[Footnote 225: Frauuis, C.]
[Footnote 226: Chertelinge, C.]
[Footnote 227: Cheleia, C.]
[Footnote 228: Wigeni, C. This was 'Wigonus de mara' (I.C.C.)
or 'Wighen' (D.B.) Count Alan's under-tenant at Ditton.]
[Footnote 229: Eurard[us] in D.B.]
[Footnote 230: 'Juraverunt homines scilicet Alerann[us],
Rogger[us] homo Walteri Giffardi' omitted in C.]
[Footnote 231: A sokeman of the Abbot of Ely at Suafham.]
[Footnote 232: Staplehoe Hundred.]
[Footnote 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.]
[Footnote 234: The I.E. version ('bans') is the right one.]
[Footnote 235: Rectius 'I. hidam'.]
[Footnote 236: C text.]
[Footnote 237: Commend' 'S. ae.' is found on 386_b_, _ad
pedem_.]
[Footnote 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.]
[Footnote 239: This is usually quoted 'inquirunt', which is
the wrong reading.]
[Footnote 240: The right reading.]
[Footnote 241: Quantum in C text.]
[Footnote 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.]
[Footnote 243: Hallow near Worcester.]
[Footnote 244: Note, Ash--'Esch'--'Naisse'.]
[Footnote 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'.]
[Footnote 246: Ed. Hamilton, p. 137.]
[Footnote 247: This also seems to have been taken from the
detailed original returns.]
[Footnote 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).]
[Footnote 249: _Domesday Studies_, pp. 526, 626.]
[Footnote 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).]
[Footnote *: Author of _Our Public Records_.]
[Footnote 251: I am not sure that even the 'pertin[ent] ad
rege[m]' of the 'first' volume (100_b_) is not a mistake for
'regnum'.]
[Footnote 252: On fo. 17 is a curious deleted list of church
fiefs in Essex, which has no business there.]
[Footnote 253: _Introduction to Domesday_, i. 354.]
[Footnote 254: _Vide infra_, p. 154.]
[Footnote 255: Henry, says Orderic, in 1100, 'concito cursu
ad _arcem Guentoniæ, ubi regalis thesaurus continebatur_,
festinavit'.]
[Footnote 256: This account of the Winchester placitum is
taken from my second article on 'The Custody of Domesday Book'
(_Antiquary_, xvi. 9-10).]
[Footnote 257: _Academy_, November 13, 1886; _Domesday
Studies_, p. 537 note; and Mr Hall's _Antiquities of the
Exchequer_, chap. i.]
[Footnote 258: _Mon. Ang._, iii. 86.]
[Footnote 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).]
[Footnote 260: _Domesday Studies_, 546-7.]
[Footnote 261: _Supra_, note 255.]
[Footnote 262: _Athenæum_, November 27, 1886.]
[Footnote 263: See also _Domesday Studies_, 547 note^{2}.]
[Footnote 264: _Domesday Studies_, 539 _et seq._]
[Footnote 265: It will be observed that I do not touch the
_Liber Exoniensis_.]
[Footnote 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 alia_ '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 subject[5] 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 Waste Total
Regis
Sutton 21-2/3 40 10 28-1/3 100 [100]
Warden 17-3/4 40 41-1/4 99 [100]
Cleyley 18 40 42 100 [100]
Gravesend 18-1/2 35 5 41-1/2 100 [100]
'Eadbolds Stow' 23-1/2 45 5 26-1/2 100 [100]
'Ailwardsley' 16-1/2 40 [6-1/2] 37 100 [100]
Foxley 16 30 21 33 100 [100]
Wyceste 19[9] 40 20 21 100 [100]
Huxlow 8 15 39 62 [62]
Willybrook 7 11 31 13 62 [62]
Upton Green 50 27 [3-1/2]29-1/2[10] 110 [109]
Neuesland [80-1/2][11] 59 [8] 12-1/2 [160]
Navisford 15 14 33 62 [62]
Polebrook 10 20 32 62 [62]
Newbottlegrove 44-7/8 72 33-1/8 150 [150]
Gilsborough 16 68 66 150 [150]
Spelho 20-1/2 [Borough 25] [16] 28-1/2 90 [90]
Wiceslea W. 10 40 30 80 [80]
Wiceslea E. 15 34 31 80 [80]
'Stotfald' 9-1/8 40 50-1/8 99-1/4 [100]
Stoke 18 [10] 12 [40]
Higham 49-1/2 44 56 149-1/2 [150]
'Malesley' 12 30 8 30 80 [80]
Corby 8-1/2 12-1/4 12-1/4 [?4] 10-3/4 47-3/4 [47]
Rothwell 10 20 7-1/2 [7-1/2] 45[12] [60]
'Andwertheshoe' [?26][13] 25 39 [90]
Ordlingbury 29-1/2 24-1/2 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 3-1/2 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 3-1/2 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.
[Footnote 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.]
[Footnote 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).]
[Footnote 3: It was connected, I find, by Mr Cockayne with
military service, not with _Danegeld_.]
[Footnote 4: Quoted in Ellis's _Introduction to Domesday_, i.
315-6.]
[Footnote 5: _Norm. Conq._, iii, 741-2.]
[Footnote 6: The phrase employed by Mr Freeman in criticizing
Professor Pearson.]
[Footnote 7: See Ellis, _ut supra_.]
[Footnote 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.]
[Footnote 9: Wrongly given by Ellis and Cockayne as 'xviii'.]
[Footnote 10: Wrongly given by Ellis as 'viii. and xx'.]
[Footnote 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.]
[Footnote 12: There is no entry for 'waste' in this hundred,
so that possibly the words 'xv. hida westa' are omitted.]
[Footnote 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'.]
[Footnote 14: _Monasticon_, vi. 1090.]
[Footnote 15: _Infra_, p. 175.]
[Footnote 16: _Infra_, p. 173.]
[Footnote 17: See my paper on 'The great carucage of 1198'
(_English Historical Review_, iii, 501 _et seq._).]
[Footnote 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.]
[Footnote 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. 224_b_), 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. 221_b_, 345_b_). In
the same way we are enabled to identify the 'Rogerius Infans' of our
list with 'Rogerius' who held 'Pilchetone', according to Domesday (i.
221_b_), 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. 221_b_), 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 Ricardus de Rodbertus filius Ricardi iiii.
abbate iiii^{or.} hidas (i. 222). hidas in Hamtonascira, et inde
servit se altero milite (p. 175).
In Risun habuit Elnod iiii. Picotus filius Colsuaini habet
bovatas terre ad geldum ... Nunc dimidiam carrucatam in Rison,
habet Colsuan de abbate Turoldo quam abbas dedit patri suo tali
(i. 345_b_). 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. 376_b_).
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 (364_b_-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 3-1/16 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. 376_b_), 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 him[16]
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 Turfrid_æ_' should clearly be 'mater
Turfrid_a_', 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:
------------------------------
| |
William Richard
de Rullos, de Rullos
Lord of Bourne (see p. 161)
_temp._ Hen. I. |
Baldwin fitz Gilbert, = Adelina
Lord of Bourne, |
_jure uxoris_, |
Founder of |
Bourne Priory, |
1138[19] (see p. 359) |
---------------------------------
| |
Roger Emma = Hugh Wac,
| Lord of
------- Bourne,
| _jure uxoris_
Baldwin in 1166
Wac,
Lord of Bourne
The Psuedo-Ingulf's version runs:
Leofric, = Edith
Lord of Bourne, |
1062 |
-------------
|
Hereward, = Turfrida
Lord of Bourne |
---------------
|
a daughter, = Hugh de Evermou
heiress of Bourne | Lord of Depyng (p. 67)
----------
|
a daughter, = Richard de Rullos.
heiress of living _temp._ Will. I.
Bourne and (pp. 77-8;
Depyng pp. 95, 99, 118)
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. 345_b_) 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. 345_b_, 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. 240_b_) 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.
[Footnote 1: Society of Antiquaries' MS. 60.]
[Footnote 2: Ed. Camden Society.]
[Footnote 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.']
[Footnote 4: Society of Antiquaries' MS. 60. Printed by
Stapleton _ut supra_.]
[Footnote 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.]
[Footnote 6: _William Rufus_, i. 571. He makes it 'Evermouth'
in the _Norman Conquest_.]
[Footnote 7: Envermeu lay on the coast some 19 miles to the
east of Dieppe.]
[Footnote 8: 'The legend of Hereward' (_Norman Conquest_, iv.
[1st Ed.], 805).]
[Footnote 9: With its hamlet of Manthorpe and Toft with
Lound.]
[Footnote 10: Ed. Sparke _Historiæ Anglicanæ Scriptores_
[1723].]
[Footnote 11: Professor Tout throws out the unlucky
suggestion: 'the _Wake_, i.e. apparently the watchful one'.]
[Footnote 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'.]
[Footnote 13: _Norman Conquest_ (1st Ed.), iv. 455-6.]
[Footnote 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'.]
[Footnote 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.]
[Footnote 16: Cf. William of Malmesbury _in loco_.]
[Footnote 17: _Dictionary of National Biography_.]
[Footnote 18: Appendix on 'the Legend of Hereward', _ut
supra_.]
[Footnote 19: The names of the churches he bestowed on the
Priory illustrate the constituents of the Honour of Bourne.]
[Footnote 20: The name of Ralf de Nevilla occurs in full in
the Lincolnshire 'Clamores' (i. 376_b_), annihilating the
old assertion that this famous surname is nowhere found in
Domesday. (See my letter in _Academy_, xxxvii. 373.)]
[Footnote 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_.]
[Footnote 22: _Inq. Com. Cant._, Ed. Hamilton, p. 111.]
[Footnote 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, 141_d_), 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 3-3/4 Bishop 3
Urso 9-3/4 Walter de Beauchamp 10-1/2
Robert Despenser 1/2 Nicholas (de Beauchamp?) 1/2
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 King 1
(in king's hands) 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 25-1/2 Bishop 22
Richard 2 Bishop 2
Ansgot 1-1/2 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 3-1/2 Bishop 6-1/2
Urso 7-3/4 Walter de Beauchamp 10
Ordric 4-1/4
Alric Arch' 1
Walter Ponther 7-1/2 Hugh Puiher 7-1/2
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 1-1/2
Roger de Laci 3-1/2 Roger de Laci 3-1/2
Walter de Burh 1/2 Count of Meulan 1
Hugh de Grentmesnil 1/2
------- -------
7-1/2 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 93-1/2 Osuualdes lauues hundret.'
15
40 Monks 39
35 Walter de Beauchamp 90 'Episcopus habet in
25 King 4 dominio' xciiii.
38 Hugh Puher 9-1/2 'Monachi' xl.
23 Hugh de Laci 13 } 'Walterus de Bealcamp' xx.[8]
25 Roger de Laci 3-1/2 }
24 Robert Marmion 7 } 'Alii barones' lxiii.
50 Bishop of Hereford 5 } 'Rex' iii.
-- Abbot of Evesham 19 }
299 Hugh fitz Osbern 1 } 72-1/2
Count of Meulan 1 }
Gile (?bertus) 1 }
Alii 12 }
Nicholas (? de } 'Quiete apud Hamtun
Beauchamp) 1/2 a geldo' x.
------- ----
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 10-1/2 Monks 10
_Fepsetenatun_ _Fepsintune_
Church of Worcester 5 Monks 1
Walter Ponther 1[9] Hugh Puiher 1[9]
Roger de Laci 5 Hugh de Laci 5
--- ---
11 7
_Hambyrie_ _Heanbyri_
Church of Worcester 14 Bishop 13-1/2
Walter de Beauchamp 1/2
------
14
_Ardolvestone et Cnistetone_ _Eardulfestun et Cnihtetun_
Church of Worcester ('de Monks 15
victu monachorum') 15
_Total_ _'Summa in Kinefolka'_
Bishop 41-1/2 'Episcopus in dominio xli.'
Monks 41 'Monachi xli.'
Walter de Beauchamp 5-1/2 'Walterus de Bealcamp vi.'
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 other[16] 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.[15]
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
(177_b_). 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 Petrus Corbezun (de Witton) 2
(Witone) 2
Church of St Denis 1 'De feodo sancti Dionysii
Ricardus corvus et
Willelmus filius Oueclini' 1
De Sancto Guthlaco Nigellus De Sancto Guthlaco Willelmus
Medicus 1 filius Ricardi 1
Heraldus filius Radulfi De Johanne de Suthlega
Comitis 1 Ricardus filius Roberti 1
De Pagano filio Johannis
Godwi 1/2
Urso tenet Witune in Wich et } De Waltero de Bello Campo
Gunfrid de eo 1/2} Theobaldus et Petrus 1/2
Æcclesia sancti Petri de } De la Berton de Gloucestra
Glou. 1/2} Randulf filius Ringulfi 1/2
In Wich est dimidia hida De monachis Gloucestrie
quæ pertinet ad aulam de Baldwinus et Lithulfus 1/2
Glou. 1/2
De Comite Warewice
Randulfus et Essulfus
filii Ringulf 3/4
De Waltero del Burc
Randulf et Essulf 1/2
Ibi duo presbyteri [de De Westmonasterio
Westmonasterio] tenet i. Theobaldus et Walterus
hidam que nunquam geldavit 1 fil' Thorald 1
Isdem [Radulfus] tenent in De Almelega fil' Aiulfi
Wich i. hidam de x. hidis et mater ejus 1
[geldantibus] 1
[Footnote 1: See my paper 'An early reference to Domesday'
(_Domesday Studies_, pp. 542-4).]
[Footnote 2: _Domesday Studies_, p. 513; _Domesday Book_
(S.P.C.K.), p. 305.]
[Footnote 3: _Introduction to Domesday_, i. 19.]
[Footnote 4: _Domesday Studies_, p. 547.]
[Footnote 5: _Domesday Book_ (S.P.C.K.), pp. 78, 305.]
[Footnote 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).]
[Footnote 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).]
[Footnote 8: MS. now destroyed here.]
[Footnote 9: 'Non geldat.']
[Footnote 10: p. 116.]
[Footnote 11: _Infra_, pp. 149 _et seq._]
[Footnote 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.
125_b_). 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.']
[Footnote 13: It is worth noting that we find, in Domesday,
both a Robert and a Walter holding of Urse in Worcestershire.]
[Footnote 14: See p. 244 _infra_.]
[Footnote 15: _Harl. MS._, 3,763, fo. 80.]
[Footnote 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
Normanniæ_[4] 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. 4_b_ 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:
Roger (1) Lucy (2) Ranulf
fitzGerold = = Meschin
| |-------.....
| | .
William Ranulf, Hugh
de Roumare, Earl of fitz Ranulf
Earl of Lincoln Chester
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:
Randulf,
_Vicomte_ of the Bessin
____________|______________
| |
Roger (1) Lucy (2) Randulf William
fitzGerold = = Earl of Chester, Meschin
| dead 1130
| |
William Randulf
de Roumare, 'de Gernon',
Earl of Lincoln Earl of Chester
('Earl of Cambridge') living 1139
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' (354_b_): in our Survey eleven[22] 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 (363_b_), 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:
Roger
Marmion,
of the Lindsey Survey
|
|
Robert = Millicent
Marmion, |
in possession 1130, |
slain 1143 |
|____________________________|
|
[Robert
Marmion],
living 1155
|
|
Maud = Robert = Philippa
de Beauchamp, | Marmion |
living 1181 | d. 1218 |
(Stapleton) | |
| |
___________| |________________
| | |
Robert Robert William
Marmion, Marmion, Marmion,
'senior,' junior clerk
d. _circ._ 1242
|________________
|
Philip
Marmion,
died _circ._ 1292,
last of his line
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 Inspeximus[24] 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
1140[25] 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'.