74 UrUsfoke and its Manor Lords. 



this was probably due to the difficult)^ of tackling four defendants 

 and not to the weakness of his case. 



If then Erlestoke was ancient demesne of the crown until the 

 reign of Henry I., it was included among the eighty-six hides of 

 the Hundred of Melksliam which the Exon Domesday report states 

 to have been held by the King in demesne, while the claim that the 

 Erlestoke demesne was of such a nature as to make it inalienable 

 suggests the further fact that it formed part of the nine hides 

 specially mentioned in the same report as royal demesne of the 

 land of Harold, for these were probably demesne of the Kingdom 

 of Wessex, of which Harold was viceroj^ and the claim that land 

 of such a nature was inalienable would certainly be supported in 

 a court of law at this period. The three other owners of land in 

 the manor were: — the Prior of Montacute, who had the mill and 

 half a virgate of land,^ the gift of Eoger de Mandeville ; the Prior 

 of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem in England, who had 

 half-an-acre of land by some grant which cainiot be traced, but 

 wliich had probably been made to one of the local preceptories of 

 the order at Swallowcliffe or Anstey ; and the Dean and Chapter 

 of Sarum, who held the church and a virgate of land by gift of 

 their Bisliop in 1220, to whose predecessor the clnirch of Melksham 

 and its chapels liad been granted by King John in 1200. In re- 

 gard to this virgate it may lie presumed that it was an ancient 

 possession of the churcli and therefore included in the hide which 

 Eumoldus, the priest of ]\Ielksham, lield according to the Wiltshire 

 Domesday report. 



At this period the condition of the inhabitants of Erlestoke was 

 similar to that of their neighbours of other manors with the ex- 

 ception that in royal manors the rents and services of the tenants 

 were easier, their rights were more secure, and the power of each 

 class to rise in the scale of freedom was greater. The population 

 of Melksham consisted of sixty-six bordarii, ninety-two villani, 

 thirty-one coliberti, and tliirty-tive scrvi, of whom the first two 

 classes — the borderers and villeins — were free and customary 

 tenants, the third the boors, who in Erlestoke at a later date were 



' In 1309 the standard virgate in Erlestoke measured twenty-four acres. 



