Cheshire in Domesday Book

TRANSACTIONS. CHESHIRE IN DOMESDAY BOOK. By J. Brownbill. Read 3oth November, 1899. HE study of a county in the great survey made T by the Conqueror in 1086 may be undertaken from any one of a great variety of motives. So far as the Cheshire portion is concerned, national history is not touched upon except by a reference to the rebellion of the Welsh king, Griffith, in 1063 ; but the subjugation of the county by Wil liam in 1070 is witnessed grimly enough by the very general "waste" in which the manors lay " when the Earl received them," a "waste" from which they had not altogether recovered sixteen years afterwards. Those who are interested in the ancient popular government will notice that the various hundreds are named from some hill, or stone, or tree at which the " free men " assembled for law and judgment. The county meeting was probably at Chester; there are several instances in which its decisions are recorded, chiefly in cases 2 Cheshire in Domesday Book. where the Church had lost property. 1 One manor (Dunham on the Hill) was held "in paragio," which Mr. Beamont explains as meaning that it was divi sible equally among all the children (or heirs) on the owner's death. Then again, the laws as to the city of Chester, with which the county record opens, and those as to the making of salt in the " Wiches " with which it closes, might each form the hasis of a substantial treatise if they were expounded at length. Others will find a congenial field of study in the names of the English proprietors and the Normans who displaced them. Two of the old owners continued to hold, under the Earl of Ches ter (Hugh Lupus), at least a part of their former manors2 ; in another case a son held two manors which his father had held before him1 ; and in other cases survivors of the former holders were now under-tenants of the new men.4 What I have tried to do is to arrange the manors under their various hundreds, and then to survey briefly the condition of the county, hundred by hun dred. King William's commissioners must in this way have made their progress, though their returns were afterwards summarised and arranged under holders of land from the Bishop and Earl Hugh down to very small holders. Here at once is pre sented to the inquirer the possibility of errors in the record. Mr. Beamont, in his Extension and Translation, has pointed out a number of these, so that there is no necessity for labouring the point at 1 The liishop claimed 2 hides in Betlisfield, ij hides and a snlthouse in " liurw.irdestone," 4 hide in Tiislon ; and I hide ill Evion and another in Sullon (now in Denbighshire) had formerly belonged to St. Chad. St. \Ver- burgh's claimed the " fifth acre' in Stanney, and had lost I hide in liurwardsley. The county also decided in the case of St. Peter's, Chester. 2 Dunning and Uluric (lib). 3 Camel (lib). 4 Colbert, Edwin, Edward, Eli, Erchcbrand, and Godid ; the last was m woman. Cheshire in Domesday Book. 3 length. The King's clerks did their work in a business-like and orderly way, hut some mistakes are of course inevitable, especially in the figures given5 ; nor can we take it for granted that the commissioners' rolls, from which the clerks worked, were absolutely perfect. One point in which the compilers seem frequently to fall into error especially by omission6 is that of the hundred in which a particular manor lay. The difficulty of checking this is the fact that there is no reason why the manors in a hundred must lie " within a ring fence," as the phrase is. There seems to me one perfectly genuine case in the Cheshire of 1086, in which an integral part of the hundred was detached from it, viz., the manor of Thornton-le-Moors; this is some miles north of Chester, and yet is entered under Dudestan Hun dred, which lay to the south of the city. A group of six manors apparently entered in the same hundred is more doubtful. Five of them (Rushton by Tarporley, Over, and others) are recorded at the end of Earl Hugh's manors in Dudestan Hundred; this by itself could be explained by supposing that the scribe had simply omitted to enter the name of the hundred before the first of the series, according to rule. But then among the manors of Gilbert Venables we have Alpraham, another of the group, also entered under Dudestan ; in this case at least the scribe was looking out for the name of the hundred, as it duly appears before the next entries 5 For instance, we are told that in the Bi.Oiop of Chester's manor of Farn- rion there was land for 5 pimighs. and then follows a statement of land for 7 ploughs actually cultivated ; in this case v may have been written for .r. A similar case occurs in the manor of Butley, near Macclesneld; this wns divided into two parts exactly equal, except that in one there were I'ii acres sown, and in the other xii. 6 Note the case of the three parts of Bruge (Haiulbriiige): two of them are recorded under "Cestre Hundred." fir the third this is omitted (8a, 93, 9«). It may, however, be that the 3} hides outside Chester werr intended to make up for deficiencies in other hundreds. B 2 4 Cheshire in Domesday Book. " In Risedon Hundred Tarporley and Wetten- " hall." Of course he may have written the name of the hundred just one entry too late ; but as it stands there appears to be a confirmation of the former entry, so that the six manors five of the Earl's and one of Gilbert Venables' should be reckoned with Dudestan Hundred, though quite detached from it. They are, however, required for the assessment of the adjoining Hundred of Rise don, in the midst of which they are situated. If the scribe did not make a double error, we have here a case similar to those described by Mr. Round in I'cudal England,7 in which "the land" was said to be in one place (attached to it by ownership), while its " wara " or assessment was in another (in which it lay physically). Besides actual errors, there are also omissions. Several of these it might be possible to be sure of; but as some of the manors are as yet unidentified, one cannot dogmatise on the point. For instance, it is usually said that Stockport is not mentioned in Domesday ; it may, however, be accounted for in one of the unidentified manors of the Hundred of Hamestan. An essay on Domesday generally embraces a discussion of the meaning of "hide" and " caru- " cate"; I will only say that I have taken the "hide" to be a unit of assessment, without refer ence to area, and the I).13. " car. " I have used, perhaps incorrectly, as equivalent to the phrase " land for one caruca," or plough of eight oxen. What seems to me a more interesting question is that of the date at which the assessment in hides was made. Domesday records the assessment, but gives no indication of its antiquity except in one case that of Chester, at the opening of the county's ;i'P. ns-"7- Cheshire in Domesday Book. 5 record. Here it is stated that " in the time of King "Edward" the assessment was 50 hides. It is probably safe to assume that this indication applies generally ; that the surveyors recorded the assess ments as they existed before the Conquest. It will be noticed further that many of the manors had then already been divided into several portions, with fractional assessments, such as lead to the belief that the hiclation was made before the divi sions. Thus Lea-by-Newbold was in three portions, of $, i, and ij hides, adding up to 3 hides, a com mon rating in Cheshire. Edge was in two parts, of \ and 2j hides, again making 3 hides for the whole. Dutton was divided into three fragments, \ hide, i^, and \ virgate, making I hide. Time must be allowed for such subdivision, and so the date of the assessment must be fixed many years before 1066. One case seems to push it back quite a century ; a charter of King Edgar in 958 endows St. Werburgh's with lands amounting to " 17 " manentes " (or hides), and these manors may, I think, without any forcing, be traced in Domesday, where their gross assessment is recorded as i6J hides, the church having apparently lost a small portion.8 I have not been able to find any connec tion between the hides or the carucates and the 8 The details are : Charter of Kdg.tr (058). DomcMlay (10^6). 1. Hodeshlid ............ Ode»lei (Host-ley, near Grcsford) ... J hide. ,. , . (C.ivelea (Cheavelcy in Ilunlinglon)... 3 2. Ceolamea ........... | Si)|tone ,Saighton) i Hiiniinit.l.m I I Iimditone (I I umington) ............... 3 3. Huntingdon ......... | Bocs|one ( nouqh,on) . .. ... ........... 3 n , ! \Visdele.-x (1-e.i-l.y-lJackford) ......... 4.. linp.on ............... j Croslone (Croughtun) ........... ...... P. (Midestune (Middleton by Ast'>n) ... 5. taslon ............... -(Cj jstune (Clifton l>y Weston Point)... 6. Barue ................ Trosfora (Trafford) (17 manentes) l6J » Leofric, Earl of Mercia, is the only recorded benefactor between Edgar and Earl Hugh ; perhaps his gifts include those which show fractional parts e.g., Wervin 1} hides, Neston 8 hide, Raby i hide.

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