DOMESDAY SURVEY 



I 



Nottinghamshire portion of the Domesday Survey has 

 perhaps received less attention than has been given to most 

 of the counties of the northern midlands. It is not one of 

 the more attractive parts of the great record, for its subject 

 matter is somewhat severely restricted to such details as were strictly 

 relevant to the main object of the Domesday Inquest, which was the 

 assessment and distribution of the king's ' geld.' Many problems are 

 raised in the course of the portion of the survey with which we have 

 to deal, but in general we can only hope to solve them in the light of 

 evidence drawn from beyond the borders of our county, for Domesday 

 rarely explains its own terminology, and local records which can be 

 applied to its elucidation are somewhat to seek in Nottinghamshire. 

 Several religious houses were founded in the county within seventy years 

 of Domesday, and their documents are useful in this connexion, but 

 none of them take in Nottinghamshire history the place which Peter- 

 borough records fill in that of Northamptonshire, nor have we any later 

 royal survey of our county such as we possess for its neighbours 

 Lincolnshire and Leicestershire. 



This is the more to be regretted since Nottinghamshire was the 

 central member of a very interesting group of counties comprising 

 Lincolnshire, Yorkshire, Derbyshire, Leicestershire, and Rutland, which 

 are distinguished from the rest of England by many characteristic 

 features pointing, as is now recognized, to a Scandinavian colonization 

 of the district in the ninth century. These counties are divided into 

 ' wapentakes ' instead of 'hundreds,' and are assessed in 'carucates' instead 

 of' hides,' while place-names ending in the accepted Scandinavian termina- 

 tion ' by ' are scattered unevenly over the district. 1 In Nottinghamshire, 

 for instance, a well-marked group of such names, represented by Scrooby, 

 Serlby, Thoresby, Budby, Bilby, and Ranby, is congregated in the north- 

 western quarter of the county, outlying examples being Harby and 

 Barnby in the Willows on the Lincolnshire border, Saundby and Bleasby 

 on the Trent, and Granby and Willoughby on the Wolds close to 

 Leicestershire. Names like Gunthorpe, Staythorpe, and Owthorpe are 

 also suggestive, but evidence from local nomenclature is easily misin- 

 terpreted ; a much more certain and delicate test of ' Danish ' settlement 

 lies in the manner in which this group of counties was assessed to the 

 Danegeld. 



1 There is still no more recent treatment of the distribution of these place-names than the Words 

 and Places of Isaac Taylor, whose results are utilized by Green, Conquest of England, 1 14-1 29. 



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