THE NORMANS IN DORSET. 117 



adjudged unworthy of holding any English land. England, 

 in fact, had disgraced itself ; for some hundred years, English- 

 men were disqualified from holding any position of authority or 

 honour in Church or State. 



The wholesale dispossession of the English thanes cleared 

 the way for the introduction of the new system of tenure, by 

 virtue of which every acre of land in the island was held 

 as a grant from the King, on condition of service to the Crown. 

 The barons (as the large holders now began to be called) 

 were thus kept from opportunities of becoming independent ; 

 and another check was imposed upon them by granting 

 them estates separated from one another by great distances, 

 which made it impossible for any lord to secure a prepon- 

 derating local influence that could endanger the Royal 

 prerogative. 



With the help of Mr. Eyton's valuable book on Domesday, 

 we are able to judge very fairly of the effects of the Conquest 

 in Dorset. The estates anciently belonging to King Edward, 

 including Portland, Bere Regis, Whitchurch Canonicorum, 

 Wimborne, Shapwick, Dorchester, Fordington. Preston 

 and Sutton, Gillingham, Pimpeme, Winfrith, and others, 

 of course were claimed by the new King ; these lands amounted 

 to nearly 70,000 acres. King William also held by escheat 

 the lands formerly belonging to Harold as Earl of Dorset ; 

 to Queen Matilda, and to Goda, Countess of Boulogne, King 

 Edward's sister some 38,000 acres. 



Next we come to what are commonly spoken of as " Church 

 lands," the long list of manors bestowed in time past upon 

 Bishoprics and monastic communities. These occupied 

 more than one-third of the whole area of Dorset, and were not 

 alienated from their religious dedication, but were re-assigned 

 by King William, with some changes. One of these changes is 

 typical : Sherborne, with manorial rights over some 20 000 

 acres, was transferred to the bishopric of Sarum, under the 

 auspices of the business-like, as well as saintly, Bishop Osmund, 

 who was one of the commissioners who superintended the 

 Domesday Survey. William got rid of all the English bishops 



