40 Shaftesbury. 



that, at the time of the Domesday Survey, there were 177 houses 

 in the town, of which 66 belonged to the king and 111 to the 

 abbess. From this division of lands and tenements must have 

 arisen the double jurisdiction exercised in the town, and the two 

 sets of manorial courts, which appear in later times, the one termed 

 Curia Domini Regis and the other Curia Dominie Abbatissce, 

 which latter attached to the abbess's fee. Both were dated by the 

 year of the king and the abbess. E,olls of the former exist in the 

 Corporation chest for 1446-7, 1460-1, 1471-3, 1475-6, and 1487-8, 

 and of the latter 1352-3, 1428-9, and 1480-2. Both of these courts 

 were held at intervals of three Aveeks, but the former on Fridays 

 and the latter on Wednesdays, but the business transacted at the 

 court of the abbess appears to have been extremely small, the 

 entry for her court often consisting of but a single line. All this 

 is simple enough, but the complication arises in regard to the 

 devolution of the king's manor. This appears to have been divided 

 into moieties. One of these had, at an early date, passed from 

 the king to other hands, for John Betteshorne held it, temp. 

 Edward III., and Margaret, his daughter, 3 Edward III., 1349, 

 held it on the day of her death (Inv. p.m.). This daughter is said 

 to have married Sir John de Berkeley ; at any rate a Berkeley, 

 of that name, probably a descendant of the former, held 

 it at his death, circa 1427-8, and Maurice Berkeley, of 

 Beverston, Knt., also held it on his death, 5th May, 38 Henry 

 VI., 1460. One of the Berkeleys subsequently sold it to Compton, 

 •who, temp. Henry VII., granted it to the abbess, at a fee farm 

 rent of £5 6s. 8d. She thus obtained possession of this moiety of 

 the manor. But she had already acquired the other moiety in the 

 following way. On 8th May, 1 1 Edward 1., 1283, the king devised 

 the moiety which he had in hand to the abbess and convent, at a 

 rent of £12, as tenant at will, which arrangement continued till 9 

 Richard II., 1385-6, or for about 100 years, when the Inheritance 

 was granted to the abbess at the same rent. But the terms of this 

 grant not being sufficiently precise for the purposes of the abbess, 

 she asked for a grant in more specific words, and it was found by 



