329 



King, and with a personal influence so greatly increased, that he 

 may ■well have desired and easily have obtained a grant of the 

 district from the Witan or governing assembly, in remembrance 

 of the great escapes and successes through which he had passed 

 therein. It was, too, during this time of prosperity and power 

 that the rather ex parte Chronicles must have been Avritten. 

 These thoughts arise from the especial devise made of these places 

 in his supposed will, which has been more than once printed. In 

 this document Wedmore is bequeathed as land, and not as a ham 

 or town. He leaves to his son the land at Heortingtune 

 {1 Hartington), the land at Carumtune (Carhampton), and Burn- 

 ham, and the land at Wedmore. He mentions also his lands at 

 Ceodre (Cheddar), and at Ciwtune (Chewton). To his daughters 

 he bequeaths properties, each property being called a " ham " or 

 town, a dwelling place. To one he gives the ham of Chippenham, 

 and to his wife the ham of Ethandune.* 



Looking at this evidence the inference points to a stay of a 

 few days only at Wedmore, and that, in the height of summer 

 and for a special purpose. The early chroniclers certainly imply 

 no more than this. 



Alfred died in 901, and Wedmore remained a part of the 

 royal demesne until the time of Eadward the Confessor. In 

 the Registers at Wells of Bishop Drokensford, who died in 

 1329, there is a document in Saxon purporting to be a Charter 

 of Eadward granting Wedmore to Bishop Giso ; and there is also 

 in the same Register another grant as from Edith, his widow, 

 addressed to the Hundred of Wedmore, giving lands in Mark to 

 the Bishop.t Eadward died in 1066, and this brings us to the 

 specially marked starting point in our history, the Norman 

 Conquest, and then to the Domesday Book of 1086. In this 

 survey Wedmore is found held by the Bishop, as it had been 



* Alfred's Will, 1728 and 1828. 

 t Harl. MSS., No. 6,968, p. 6. Dugdale Monasticon, voL ii., p. 287. 



