Domesday Studies: an analysis and digest of the Statfordshire Survey, etc

Front matter

DOMESDAY STUDIES: AN ANALYSIS AND DIGEST OE THE STAFFORDSHIRE SURVEY. TREATING OF THE MENSURATION, TECHNICALITIES, PHRASEOLOGY, AND METHOD OF DOMESDAY, IN ITS RELATION TO STAFFORDSHIRE, AND TO OTHER COUNTIES OF THE SAME CIRCUIT. WITH TABLES AND NOTES RE-PRODUCING THE MAIN FEATURES OF THE DOMESDAY SURVEY OF THE COUNTY, AND COMPARING THE SAME WITH EXISTING CONDITIONS. BY THE EEV. EOBERT W. EYTON, LATE RECTOE OF EYTON, SALOP, AUTHOB OF "THE ANTIQUITIES OF SHBOPSHIBE ;" "A KEY TO DOMESDAY, EXEMPLIFIED BY THE DOBSET SUBVEY;" "DOMESDAY STUDIES, AN ANALYSIS AND DIGEST OF THE SOMEBSET SURVEY;" AND " THE COURT HOUSEHOLD, AND ITINERARY OF KINO HENRY n." LONDON: PUBLISHED BY TRUBNER 6k CO., 57 and 59, LUDGATE HILL. PRINTED AND SOLD BY JOS. HALDEN, STAFFORD. MDCCCLXXXI. LIST OF SUBSCEIBEES. Copies. His Grace the Duke of Devonshire, K.G., Chatsworth . . . i Right Hon. the Earl of Harrowby, K.G., Sandon Hall . .

I Right Hon. Lord Wrottesley, Lord Lieutenant of the County i Col. the Hon. Geo. Wrottesley, Hampton Court Palace . . i W. A. Adderley, Esq., The Beeches, Florence, Longton . . i H. W. Adnitt, Esq., Shrewsbury i John N. Bagnall, Esq., Shenstone Moss, near Lichfield . i Alan Bagot, Esq., 49, Cadogan Place, London 1 Arthur Barnes, Esq., Solicitor, Lichfield 1 C. H. Bayley, Esq., Westbromwich 1 Rev. Henry Beckvvith, Eaton Constantine, Ironbridge, Salop 1 Edwd. Bickersteth, D.D., the Very Rev. the Dean of) Lichfield, the Deanery, Lichfield j Boston Public Library. Boston, Massachusetts, U.S. . . . 1 Rev. and Hon John Bridgman, Weston Rectory, Shiffnal . 1 The Rev. and Hon. Canon Bridgman, The Hall, Wigan . . 1 Rev. John Brooke, Haughton Hall, Shiffnal 1 Rev. C. Brooke, Haughton Hall, Shiffnal 1 E. Brunt, Esq., F.G S, F.R.A.S., Hanley 1 Messrs. Bunny and Davis, Booksellers, Shrewsbury . . . 1 Mrs. C. A. Burne, Pye Birch, Eccleshall 1 Edward Caddick, Esq., Wellington R.oad, Edgbaston . . . 1 Arthur Cates, Esq., 7, Whitehall Yard, London 1 John Yates Carryer, Esq., The Mount, Stone 1 W. Challinor, Esq., Leek 2 Geo. T. Clark, Esq., Dowlais House, Dowlais 1 Capt. W. Congreve, Stafford . . • 1 Rev. Canon Cooke, F.S.A., Hill House, Wimbledon, Surrey 1 Sir V. R. Corbet, Bart., Acton Reynald, Shrewsbury . . . 1 John Corbett, Esq., M.P., Droitwich 1 J. Charles Cox, Esq., Christ Church Vicarage, Lichfield . . 1 Messrs. Cornish Brothers, Birmingham 2 N. C. Curzon, Esq., Lockington, Derby LIST OF SUBSCRIBERS.

IV Copies. Rev. T.W. Daltry, M.A., F.L.S., Madeley Vicarage, Newcastle i Wm. Downing, Esq., Olton, Acock's Green .... . I W. H. Duignan, Esq., Rushall Hall, Walsall I Joseph Edge, Esq., Elder House, Cobridge i Rev. Prebendary Edwards, M.A., Trentham i Sir H. Edwards, Bart., Wootton Hall, Ashbourne . . . . i T. C. Eyton, Esq., F.Z.S , Eyton, Wellington, Salop . . . I Rev. H. J. Ferrier, M.A., King Edward VI. School, Stafford i H. W. Foley, Esq., Prestwood, Stourbridge I Wm. 0. Foster, Esq., Apley Park, Bridgnorth . . . . I Free Library, Stoke-on-Trent (per Mr. W. Bagnall) . . . I R. W. Gillespie, Esq., Walsall I R. D. Gough, Esq., Willenhall i G. Grazebrook, Esq., F.S.A., Oak Hill Park, Liverpool . . i H. Sydney Grazebrook, Esq., Middleton Villa, Grove Park] Chiswick, Middlesex j Hand & Co., Solicitors, Stafford i Ed. Hardwicke, Esq., Upper Arley, Bewdley i J. T. Harland, Esq., M.D., Tixall Lodge, Stafford . . . . i A. P. Heywood-Lonsdale, Esq., Gredington, Whitchurch . i A. S. Hill, Esq., O.C., M.P., Oxley Manor, Whampton . . i Jas. Hixmith, Esq., Dawscroft, Brewood i Mrs. Elizabeth Holmes, Gayton Vicarage, near Stafford . . i Lieut. -Col. Gould Hunter- Weston, F.S.A., Hunterston,) West Kilbride, Ayrshire J S. Heywood, Esq., 171, Stanhope st., Hampton road, London . 1 Hon. Mrs. Meynell Ingram, Hoarcross, Burton-on-Trent . . 1 Rev. J. T. Jeffcock, M.A., F.S.A., Rectory, Wolverhampton . 2 E. Jones, Esq., Chetwynd End, Newport 1 Jos.

Chapter I. Limits Of The Domesday County

CIRCUITS OF DOMESDAY COMMISSIONERS. THE RECORD, AS CODIFIED, CONFUSES STAFFORDSHIRE WITH OTHER COUNTIES OF THE SAME CIRCUIT. THE COMMISSIONERS' NOTES, ORIGINALLY TAKEN IN THE COUNTRY, WERE AFTERWARDS CODIFIED AND FINALLY RUBRICATED. ERRORS AND OMISSIONS IN THE TWO LATTER PROCESSES. POST DOMESDAY CHANGES OF THE BOUNDARIES OF STAFFORDSHIRE. CERTAIN STAFFORDSHIRE MANORS OMITTED IN DOMESDAY — TAMWORTH, BURTON-ON- TRENT, ROWLEY REGIS. SIMILAR OMISSIONS IN THE SURVEY OF OTHER COUNTIES. STAFFORDSHIRE ESTATES APPARENTLY EXCLUDED FROM THE SURVEY, VIRTUALLY INCLUDED THEREIN — STOKE-UPON-TRENT, STONE, COLWICH AND STOWE, NEWCASTLE-UNDER-LYME. THE DOMESDAY COUNTY AND THE PRESENT COUNTY COMPARED AS TO AREAS. TABLE OF THE PRESENT COUNTY SO FAR AS IT WAS PREFIGURED IN DOMESDAY. A THIRD OF THE SUPERFICIAL AREA OF THE LAND IGNORED IN DOMESDAY.

RATIO OF THIS PHÆNOMENON. THE STAFFORDSHIRE PASTURAGE AND UP- LANDS. THE STAFFORDSHIRE WOODLANDS. The ' Statfordscire ' which we see surveyed in Domesday is far from being identical with the Staffordshire of the present day ; nay, in some particulars, the written Survey fails to em body the exact report of the Domesday Commissioners them selves. To establish this latter paradox it will first be necessary to prove, by the internal evidence of the codex, what other counties fell under the purview of the same Commission as that which visited Staffordshire. There were three peculiarities in the method of the Stafford shire Commissioners which distinguish their work from that of the Commissions which visited the adjacent counties of Wor cestershire, Shropshire, Cheshire, and Derbyshire. — I. The Staffordshire Commissioners, in dealing with the plough-lands and the teams of any given manor, adopted a formula different to the formulæ which more or less obtained with the other aforesaid Commissioners.

II. The Staffordshire Commissioners, in reporting the con dition of any parish church, never used the word ' Ecclesia', but typified the institution by mere mention of a resident Presbyter. But the other Commissions aforesaid constantly registered 'Ecclesiæ', which can have been nothing more than mere parish churches. III. The Staffordshire Commissioners never made verbal allusion to the geldability or non-geldability of an estate. They spoke of. una hida, of una virgata terræ, of una carucata terræ, but such expressions as una hida gcldabilis, or hida non-geld abilis, or hida ad geldum, or Hoc Manerium se defendit pro una hida were not in their vocabulary. But the other Commis sioners aforesaid made it their business to record all they knew about the geld-rate of estates. Warwickshire, the fifth county adjacent to Staffordshire, remains to be spoken of in this diagnosis.

The Warwickshire Survey embodies all the three specialities which mark the survey of Staffordshire; and beyond Warwickshire there was OXFORD SHIRE, the Survey of which has precisely the same character istics. So then, Oxfordshire, Warwickshire, and Staffordshire were in one and the same Domesday Circuit. The point is established by the internal evidence of the Record. And now for the use of this ascertainment. It will be no petitio principii to state that Roger Earl of Shrewsbury had at the date of Domesday a considerable Fief in Staffordshire, a much smaller Fief in Warwickshire, and no Fief at all in Ox fordshire. But it is (for the present) an hypothesis that the Earl's four Manors of Ouat, Romesley, Rudge, and Shipley were at that date in Staffordshire. Yet being so in Staffordshire, by hypothesis, it is a clear fact that the written Domesday registers them as in Warwickshire.

It has been further stated (Antiquities of Shropshire, II. 259) that Domesday specifies 'Stanlei Hundred' as the whereabout of these four manors. This is not absolutely the case. The Domesday Rubricator has not written ' Stanlei Hundred' opposite any one of the four manors in question, but opposite the manor (Ulvestone) which immediately precedes the four. It is reasonable and usual to suppose that a Rubric, thus written, governed, and was intended to govern, all succeeding LIMITS OF THE DOMESDAY COUNTY. 3 entries of manors till a fresh Rubric were introduced, but, in practice, no such rule was adhered to; indeed, the Rubricators of this portion of Domesday, neglecting the due insertion of a proper Rubric, often threw whole series of manors into a false aspect. Summarily, though the Clerk who transcribed this portion of Domesday took the above four manors of Earl Roger to have been in Warwickshire, it does not follow that the Clerk who afterwards rubricated the codex intended to fix them in ' Stanlei Hundred '.

My hypothesis is that they were in Staf fordshire, my further hypothesis is that they were in the Staf fordshire Hundred of ' Saisdon.' These hypotheses will become the more plausible, the more we study the written Domesday. — William fitz Corbucion had according to the Record (so. 243. a) nineteen estates in Warwickshire. The nineteenth and last of these estates is Cillentone. It is specially rubricated as in Colvestan Hundred, and it is told how the Bishop of Chester was then claiming the estate ("Episcopus de Cestre calumniatur hanc terram "). Now there was no such Hundred as ' Colvestan ' in War wickshire. It was a Staffordshire Hundred. It remains so to this day. It is now spelt as " Cuddlestone Hundred", and in Cuddlestone Hundred, Staffordshire, is still to be found that Manor of Chillington which ultimately descended from William fitz Corbucion to his Giffard successors.

Moreover the Manor of Chillington is flanked on its northern border by the Bishop of Chester's Domesday Manor of Brewood, and the Bishop eventually got seigneury over Chillington. That Chillington was in Staffordshire, and not in Warwickshire, at the date of Domesday, I take to be a fact rather than a theory. Again, the Staffordshire Domesday (as codified), though it neglects to give William fitz Corbucion his Staffordshire Manor of Chillington, gives him a manor often hides, written as 'Sibe ford.' Sibeford has not the appearance of a Staffordshire manor, for King William himself had no estate in Staffordshire of so vast a volume as would be implied by ten Staffordshire hides. Neither is there any such manor as Sibeford named in the topo graphy of modern Staffordshire ; for Erdeswick's identification thereof with Seighford has no etymological fitness, and is utterly at variance with all that we learn about the genuine Seighford, from Domesday, and from subsequent evidences.

Having shown that William Corbucion's Manor of 'Sibeford was not in Staffordshire,1 I am not here concerned to prove where it was. By way of a hint to more exhaustive enquirers, I would just point out that the Oxfordshire Feodaries of the 1 3th century speak of one or more such manors as Sibeford, while the Oxfordshire Domesday, as written, is deficient in the same respect. Once again, — The Staffordshire Domesday gives to William fitz Ansculf a manor written as " Eseningetone." It is rubricated specially as in " Cudulvestan Hundred." There is no suspicion of inaccuracy here : it is the Staffordshire Manor of Essington. It is known to have remained in the Barony of fitz Ansculf's heirs. It is still in the Staffordshire Hundred of Cuddlestone. How does it awaken our surprise, and quicken our perceptions, to find this entry of the Staffordshire Domesday repeated, ver batim et literatim, in the Warwickshire Survey.

(See Domes day, so. 243. a). The theory which reconciles all these contradictions, and resolves all these difficulties, I have already set forth in other works. The Domesday Commissions made their primary re ports on loose leaves, or rotulets, and the work was arranged according to counties and hundreds. In due course these leaves, or rotulets, were sent en masse to the King's Exchequer, there to be transcribed, condensed, or paraphrased ; there also to be codified, not in a sequence of hundreds, but in a sequence of tenures. In their passage to, or on their arrival at the Exchequer, some of the rotulets of a particular county became confused with the rotulets of another county of the same circuit; other rotulets were mislaid for the moment, so as to appear in the codex in a postscriptive form; other rotulets again were absolutely lost, or purposely suppressed, or authoritatively weeded.

The Exchequer Clerks, not being the same clerks as had worked under the Commissioners in the country, made mistakes (it is wonderful how few) in their codification of the survey. Their want of topographical knowledge, their unacquaintance with the condition and interests of particular landholders, will have dis abled them from correcting or solving the errors or doubts 1. The Domesday Transcriber seems to have made this entry about Sibeford post-scriptively, on a half filled page, where there was plenty of room, the scribe himself not appearing to have known where he ought to put it. I say that it was done post-scriptively because the Elenchus of the Staffordshire Survey does not name William Corbucion among the landholders of the county (Domesday, so. 246.3,1). CIRCUITS OF DOMESDAY COMMISSIONERS. 5 engendered by confused or imperfect texts.

And when the codified work came into the hands of the rubricators, these clerks were still less likely to have uniformly and correctly restored the rubrics, suggested by rotulets of hundreds, to a record arranged in order of fiefs. As a rule these scribes cared more for their own calligraphy than for the accuracy and com pleteness of the record. There are some rubrics of Hundreds in the Staffordshire Survey which will have been inserted by guess, and are in opposition to ascertained fact. There are other cases where the transcript clerk not having left room for the names of a hundred in its proper place, the rubricator has found room for the said name in a wrong place. Lastly, there are a plurality of cases where the rubrication of a new hundred having been necessary and proper, the scribe has omitted it altogether.

The foregoing observations on the peculiarities of method adopted by certain Domesday Commissioners are capable of still further illustration, development, and use. The Northamp tonshire survey exhibits the same three features as we have seen to mark the Surveys of Staffordshire, Warwickshire, and Oxfordshire.1 Presumably then, Northamptonshire belonged to the same Domesday Circuit. We have seen, too, that the notes taken in some parts of this circuit happened to be so mis takenly codified by the Clerks of the Exchequer as that some manors of one county of the circuit appear among the manors of another county. The Northamptonshire Survey embodies two remarkable instances of this same confusion. Under the title " Terra Sancti Remigii Remis," and with the rubric of " Codwestan Hundred, " it describes the two manors of "Lepelie" and " Mersetone."2 Now, Northamptonshire contained no such 1 There is one exception to this.

In the Northamptonshire Survey (so. 229, a, 1), it is said : — "Nigellus tenet in eadem villa ii. hidas, et pro tanto se defendit." The expression is an indirect allusion to the geldability of an estate. As a rule, the Com missioners of this circuit expressed hidage without such allusions. 2 See Domesday, so. 222, b, 2, Norhantescire.— The possibility of defining the Domesday Circuits by tests of this kind has long engaged the writer's attention. He has already committed to print some too hasty conclusions on the subject (Notes on Domesday, p.p. 9, 10.) The tests which he then used were not narrow enough for the purpose. Identity in the formalism, sameness in the method and scope of the Commissioners' enquiries are excellent tests. Negative tests, always of much import, are supplied by the blunders of transcript clerks, codifyers, and rubricators.

For instance, it is on the very face of Domesday that some clerk made a blunder when he put one manor into two counties. The presumption at once arises that he may have made other less transparent blunders. On the other hand, if, in studying Domesday, we find the same tenures, the same customs, the same agricultural terms, the same topographical peculiarities, hundred as Codwestan ; and Lapley and Marston, two manors which remained for ages in possession of the French Abbey of S. Remigius, at Rheims, were Staffordshire manors, in the Stafford shire Hundred of " Cudolvestan" (as Domesday elsewhere writes the name) ; nay, they still remain in the same Staffordshire Hundred, — now written, or rather miswritten, as " Cuttlestone." It has now been shown how far the " Statfordscire " of the Domesday codex differed from the county surveyed by the Domesday Commissioners.

My next proposition is to show how far the county surveyed by the Domesday Commissioners differed from the county of the present day. — Three manors of Roger de Montgomery, Earl of Shrewsbury, (to wit Alveley, Norley, and Claverley), and one manor of his son, Hugh, (Worfield to wit), were unquestionably in Stafford shire at the date of the Survey. They are none of them rubricated as to their Hundred in the Staffordshire codex, but analogies of various kinds point to Seisdon as the Hundred of all four. Within fifty years of Domesday, that is, before the death of King Henry I, these four manors, as well as Earl Roger's previously noticed manors of Ouat, Romesley, Rudge, common to two counties, or alike absent from both, these are neither tests nor signs that those two counties were in the same Domesday Circuit.

The writer's exact meaning in disowning this latter class of evidences will best be shown by instance. — The Ancilla, or female serf, is never spoken of in the Somerset Survey, only once in the Dorset Survey, only once in the Survey of Staffordshire. What follows ? Surely not that the two last counties were surveyed by one Domesday Commission ; — but that in certain counties the serf-wife was hardly ever reckoned among the agricultural staff of an estate. ■ In the Northamptonshire Survey the Ancilla, or serf-wife, is frequently introduced, obviously because she was frequently employed in like work with that of the serf; which work, by the way, was usually associated with the teams employed on the manor-lord's demesnes. Again, among the sub-tenants and occupants of the Staffordshire Survey, the Sokeman is never mentioned.

In the Northamptonshire Survey many sokemen are introduced. This does not prove any duality of Domesday Commissions. It merely shows that the tenure-by-socage, non-existent in Staffordshire, was well known in Northamptonshire. And, as regards local customs generally, we must remember that Staffordshire and Northamptonshire were a priori likely to differ, inasmuch as they had been indifferent earldoms of the Anglo-Saxon period. And as to clerical expressions and eccentricities — implying nothing about circuits — in the survey of the aforementioned manor of Lapley the scribe substituted the word nemus for silva. This was quite exceptional. In no other manor of Staffordshire, in no other manor of Northamptonshire, so far as I have cared to search, is woodland expressed by the word nemus. But the scribe who codified the Exon version of the Somerset Survey always wrote nemus instead of silva, and nemusculus instead of silva minuta, while the Exchequer scribe, codifying the same Domesday notes, always used the alternative phraseology.

In the Northamptonshire Domesday the bovate, or eighth part of a hide, is occasionally introduced, but never in the Staffordshire Survey. This arose in a circumstance, not in the Commissioners' method. They found the hides of Northamp tonshire much more fractionally divided than those of Staffordshire, and so they acquiesced in the local system. POST-DOMESDAY CHANGES OF BOUNDARY. 7 and Shipley, were mised (as the term was) into Shropshire, and there they now remain, viz, Norley Regis, Alveley, Quat, Romesley, and Rudge, in the Shropshire Hundred of Stottesden, — Claverley, Worfield, and Shipley in the Shropshire Hundred of Brimstree. Thus were sixty-three hides of land lost to Staffordshire and annexed to Shropshire. Robert de Stafford's Domesday Manor of Bobbington (Bubintone) was correctly rubricated in Domesday as in the Staffordshire Hundred of Saisdone.

A part of Bobbington has been since annexed, by what process I know not, to the Shrop shire Hundred of Brimstree. The same Robert de Stafford's Domesday Manor of Ciscivorde (Cheswardine) and Ceppecanole (Chipnall) was found by the Domesday Commissioners in Staffordshire, and was correctly rubricated by the Domesday scribes as in Pireholle (Pirehill) Hundred. In the time of King Henry II, John le Strange, a Shropshire baron, wrested Ches wardine and its member, Chipnall, from the Baron Stafford of the day, and claimed to hold it sine medio of the Crown. The king allowed this difforciament, and forthwith Cheswardine and Chipnall were mised into the Shropshire Hundred of Bradford- North, where they now remain. Another Post-Domesday change of county boundaries was on this wise : — The Staffordshire Manor of Almentone, falling rightly under a rubric of Pireholle Hundred, was held at the date of Domesday under the Earl of Shrewsbury by " Wil helmus."

The place was Almington, and its Domesday tenant was William Pantulf, Baron of Wem. This same William Pantulf held under the same earl, at the same date, the Shrop shire Manor of Tirelire in Odenet Hundred. I think it was in the time of King Henry I. that Tirley was mised by Pantulf into the Staffordshire Hundred of Pirehill. The object of the change was probably to associate the two manors under one Hundredal jurisdiction. The change continues in force at the present day. Similarly, since Domesday, Edingale, a Derbyshire estate, then divided between Henry de Ferrars and certain villein tenants of King William, has been mised into Staffordshire. There have been other changes of county boundaries since Domesday, but whereas I do not find that any of them have endured, I shall refer to two of them only, and to those with great brevity. — At the date of Domesday King William held the Worcester shire Manors of Terdeberie, in Came Hundred, and of Clent (which included Brome), in Clent Hundred.

The fee-farm rents of these two Royal Manors were payable at that date to the Sheriff of Staffordshire, and the payment was returnable at the king's Staffordshire Manor of Suinesford, since called King swinford. This incident it was, perhaps, that led to Tarbeck, Clent, and Brome being subsequently annexed to Staffordshire. The change endured longer in one case than in the other. These estates are now rc-mised into Worcestershire. In the foregoing observations I have aimed at a comparison of the boundaries of Staffordshire, as it now is, with the boundaries of Staffordshire as they may be read in, or deduced from, the Domesday Survey. But the county, read of or to be dis covered in the Domesday Survey, was not the whole county of the Domesday period: in other words, some parts of the county of the eleventh century were either left untouched by the Domesday enquiry, or the Record of such enquiry was coevally suppressed or coevally lost.

These blanks of the Great Record, often obscuring places of wealth and importance, were a marvel to Sir William Dugdale in his day. Far be it from me to sup pose that I can discover the ratio of phænomena which per plexed the Prince of Antiquaries. All that I propose to do, in the present instance, is to parade the omitted, or seemingly omitted, places of Stafford shire, and then to cite, in each genuine case of omission, what appear to be analogous cases of omission in the survey of other counties. Tamworth is not in Domesday. Our knowledge of Tam worth during the period antecedent to Domesday marks it as a place of great importance. Offa and other Mercian Kings, his successors, seem to have occasionally resided at Tamworth. It was here that Ethelfreda, the great daughter of Alfred, what time she governed Mercia on behalf of her brother, King Edward the Elder, — it was here that Ethelfreda founded one of her remarkable castles.

At all periods of its better known history, Tamworth, whether as a burgh, a chatellany, a manor, or a parish, has been divided between Staffordshire and War wickshire. The extant Domesday surveys it under neither county. All that I have been able to gather from Domesday is this, — That King Edward the Confessor, and King William, in STAFFORDSHIRE MANORS OMITTED IN THE RECORD. 9 virtue of their successive possession of the Warwickshire Manor of Coleshill, had ten Burgages in 'Tameworde', and that the same Kings, holding in turn the Staffordshire Manor of Wig ginton, had, as a correlative of such tenure, four Burgages in ' Tamworde !' This is scant information in itself, but important inferences may be drawn therefrom. It shows, to me at least, that Tam worth itself had not been in the hand of King Edward, and, if not, then that it must have been in the seigneury of the Mercian Earls contemporary with King Edward, to wit of Earl Leofric, Earl Ælfgar, and Earl Edwin, in succession.

At this rate Tamworth will have passed to the hands of the Conqueror as an escheat, not earlier than the year 107 1, when the last Mercian Earl lost both his heritage and his life. A tradition, such as it is, is clear on the point that Tamworth did sometime come into the hands of the Conqueror. The Stafford shire historian (Shaw, i, 4.16) either relying upon, or amplifying, this tradition, intimates that the King gave Tamworth to Robert Marmion, of Fontenaye, "hereditary champion " to the Dukes of Normandy. I more than suspect the truth of this. Certainly the Marmion who was contemporary with the Conqueror was of Fontenaye, and his name was Robert, but I do not know or believe that he ever set foot in England. He is nowhere in Domesday. The first Marmion who appears in England was his son, Roger.

In such questions a date is invaluable. I say with confidence that, in the year 1103, Robert Marmion, the father, was in the Court of Robert Duke of Normandy, that he was deceased in 1 106, that before the year 1 1 1 5 one of his sons, Roger, appeared in England, not, that I know of, in any manner of succession to his father, Robert, but, as I have ascertained, in very frequent succession to Robert le Despencer, a Domesday Baron, who had figured in Warwickshire, Lincolnshire, and other counties. In such sort did Roger Marmion inherit the Lincolnshire Manor of Scrivelesbie, and it was to Scrivelesbie, and not to any Norman tenement, that the hereditary championship, dreamt of by so many antiquaries, was afterwards attached. When I add that, on indisputable evidence, Robert le Des pencer, the Domesday Baron, was some time seized of the ' castle and honour' of Tamworth, and that Robert Marmion (II. ), son of Roger Marmion, aforesaid, was in turn seized of the same castle and honour, I have established a fair presumption that if William the Conqueror ever bestowed Tamworth on any subject, it was on an ancestor of the afterwards combined races of Marmion and Le Despencer, and that the ancestor in question was not Robert Marmion but Robert Le Despencer.

After all, the enigma remains unsolved, almost untouched. — Why was not the state of Tamworth reported by the Domesday Commissioners, who visited both Staffordshire and Warwick shire ? Or, if they did survey and report, how came their record to be lost, or why was it suppressed ? I can quote no instance of Domesday reticence in strict parallellism with this case of Tamworth. The nearest cases are these ■ — In Lincolnshire the Royal Manor of Washingborough does not appear in the extant survey. It was surveyed never theless ! We cannot be sure that Tamworth was. In Somerset the Royal Estates of Wellow and Kilmersdon, each the caput of a Hundred, are absent from the survey. There is a bare possibility that their territory may be implied in a very perfunctory notice which Domesday takes of the burgh of Bath.

Bath itself is slurred, rather than surveyed. Tam worth is not even slurred. The Royal cities of London and Winchester are absent from Domesday. Who can suppose that they were surveyed, and the record lost ? Who can venture to say that they were surveyed, and the record, for state reasons, suppressed ? It is more con sistent with the genius and foresight of Norman William that he should have prevented, rather than suppressed, impolitic inquests. BURTON-UPON-TRENT is not in Domesday Book, that is, the whole, or at least the bulk of the territory which then constituted the Manor and Parish of Burton is not in the extant survey. And this suppressed territory, amounting to at least 6,500 acres, was then a possession of, and contained the site of, Burton Abbey. Perhaps it will be more definite and more intelligible to say that what the Abbot of Burton had in Burton at the date of Domesday was co-extensive with the present parish, and that the- Staffordshire portion of such parish, amounting to 6,580 acres, as well as the Derbyshire portion of the same, are absent from the Domesday record.

Here we have some sort of guide — or at least there is some fair room for speculation — as to which out of several possible causes may have induced the Domesday silence. MANORS AND ESTATES OMITTED IN THE RECORD. 11 Staffordshire and Derbyshire may be proved, by the internal evidence of Domesday, to have been visited by two distinct corps of Domesday Commissioners. The Abbatial Manor of Burton lay partly in one circuit, partly in the other. No report of either Commission says a word about the estate. One possible cause of Domesday silence, viz, accidental loss of a leaf, or rotulet, is thus eliminated. If each Commission made an independent report of that section of Burton which lay within its purview, it is incredible that both reports should have been lost by concurrent accidents. If the reports were both made they were afterwards suppressed, — designedly suppressed, — but, whether by authority or contrivance, we have yet to learn.

A strictly analogous case was that of the Home Estate of the Lincolnshire Abbey of Croyland. This estate is not in the extant Domesday. It was surveyed by the Domesday Commis sioners of that circuit. Ingulfus, the then Abbot of Croyland, seems, either by lawful diplomacy or some more tortuous process, to have procured the suppression ; at all events, after the survey was codified, Ingulphus produced an alleged Domes day survey of the estate. He professed to have copied it from the Exchequer Codex ; but whereas it is not there, and there is no symptom or probability that it ever was there, this profession of Ingulphus was obviously mendacious. The broad inference is that Ingulphus had a genuine copy of the actual survey of Croyland ; that he procured, by interest or contrivance, the ex clusion of this item from the official codex ; that afterwards, regretting his policy, or repenting of his fraud, he reproduced and, as far as he was able, advertised the original clause. x All that I care to establish by this case of Croyland is, that the survey was taken.