THE DOMESDAY SURVEY 



between them, and reconciled them, because that the abbot was a good 

 man ; and then he gave the king forty marcs of gold [>r24o] for recon- 

 ciliation.' Mr. Freeman assigned this event to the very beginning 

 of William's reign, and his charter confirming the abbey in its 

 possessions ' at the request of abbot Brand,' which I have been for- 

 tunate enough to identify, confirms, by the names of its wit- 

 nesses, Mr. Freeman's conclusion.^ Since then much had happened. 

 In 1069 abbot Brand died, and William seized the opportunity of ap- 

 pointing a warrior monk from Fecamp, Turold by name, to guard the 

 abbey from a threatened attack by Hereward and his outlaws in the fens. 

 ' By the splendour of God,' the king exclaimed, ' as he is more of a 

 soldier than a monk, I shall place him where he will find his match ; 

 he can there prove his valour in the fight.' Turold hastened to ' the 

 Golden Borough ' with ' ealle his Frencisce menn.' His arrival at 

 Stamford was the signal for a dash by Hereward ' and his gang.' The 

 bewildered monks were scattered to the winds, and the English outlaws, 

 with their Danish allies, looted and wrecked the minster, and hurried 

 back with priceless treasure of sacred objects and 'red gold.'* 



With a hundred and sixty ' French ' warriors, Turold reached his 

 abbey, only to find it a blackened ruin, silent and abandoned. Its in- 

 mates, of course, had to be recalled, its buildings replaced, its services 

 restored ; but, over and above all this, the ' Frencisce menn ' had to be 

 provided for ; the knights who had come with abbot Turold had come 

 to stay. When the Conqueror fixed the military quotas to be provided 

 by the bishops and abbots, he made Peterborough Abbey liable to find 

 sixty knights, a total equalled only by those of three bishop's sees and 

 exceeded by none.' In this, I think, we see that his hand lay heavy on 

 the house. Even Turold, though glad to provide for his own friends and 

 followers, would have no wish to impoverish his abbey by quartering on 

 its lands the king's knights. 



The enfeoffment of military tenants on the lands of the religious 

 houses was a constant grievance with the latter in the days of the Nor- 

 man Conquest. In Northamptonshire we find it well illustrated on the 

 manors of Peterborough Abbey. The whole of those on which knights 

 had been enfeoffed, to discharge the military service of the house, are 

 entered together in Domesday under a separate heading (fo. 2211^) ; and 

 Peterborough records enable us to identify their holders and the service 

 they performed. Anschitil de St. Medard, for instance, had received a 

 fee which, although entered as ' Witheringham ' (Wittering) only in 

 Domesday, extended right across the neck of the county, from Easton, 

 on the Welland, to Wansford, on the Nene, with an outlying portion 



' See my Commune of London and other studies, pp. 29-30. 



* See further, for all this, Freeman's Norman Conquest, IV. (1871), 56, 335, 457-461. 



' See my Feudal England, p. 278. According to the abbot's carta in 1 166, no fewer 

 than 63I knight's fees had been carved out of the abbey's estates by 1135 (for these were 

 all of ' the old feoffment '). 



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