A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE 



First in order among the landowners of Nottinghamshire stands the 

 king, the extent of whose possessions may be gathered from the Domes- 

 day map. Stretching across some sixty vills they were in fact almost 

 entirely grouped as ' sokeland,' or ' berewicks,' round the five great 

 manors of Dunham, Bothamsall, Mansfield, Arnold, and Orston, all of 

 which stand out conspicuously in the feudal history of the shire. 

 Bothamsall, the least important of the five, had belonged to Earl Tostig 

 of Northumbria ; the rest had formed part of the demesne of Edward 

 the Confessor; while on the Leicestershire border, apart from this group, 

 the king had reserved to himself ' Neubold ' (in Kinoulton) and Upper 

 Broughton, previously belonging to the house of Leofric of Mercia. 1 The 

 centre of his territory in our county, however, consisted of the large 

 manor of Mansfield with its dependent ' sokeland.' The latter lay in 

 two blocks, one extending from Mansfield itself along the Maun, 

 Meden, and Poulter, to the border of the ' soke ' of Bothamsall which 

 lay along the Idle ; the other scattered over the north-eastern division of 

 the county, the ' Oswardbeck wapentake ' of Domesday. The northern 

 group of sokeland maintained its unity as ' Oswardbeck Soke ' right 

 through the Middle Ages ; the western group is interesting because it 

 included just that district which is now known as Shirewood forest 

 the northern half of the forest as it is defined in mediaeval ' perambu- 

 lations.' 2 We have no proof of any afforestation in our county before 

 the Pipe Roll of 1 130, when William Peverel answers de placitis forestae? 

 but it is distinctly probable that the king in keeping this region in his 

 own hands may have had an eye to its sporting possibilities. 



The ecclesiastical history of these manors is unusually clear. In 

 1093 William Rufus gave to Robert Bloet, the newly-appointed bishop 

 of Lincoln, the churches of Mansfield and Orston, ' with the chapels 

 which are in the berewicks belonging to the said manors,' 4 a grant 

 which is interesting as showing the relationship between a manor and its 

 berewicks reproduced in the ecclesiastical sphere in the distinction 

 between a ' church ' and its (dependent) chapels. Domesday mentions a 

 church as existing at Mansfield and Orston, and so late as i79oThrosby, 

 in his edition of Thoroton, says, ' The church (of Orston) is reputed the 

 mother-church of Scarrington, Thoroton, and part of Staunton,' three of 

 the dependencies of Orston in io86. 6 Henry I gave Dunham church 

 to Archbishop Thurstan of York, who made of it a prebend in his church 

 of Southwell, 6 where it still gives a title to an honorary canon ; and 

 Henry II, between 1154 and 1158, added the church of Arnold to the 

 donations which he confirmed to Laund Priory, Leicestershire. 7 



1 Probably Upper Broughton, Notts., and Nether Broughton, Leic., had originally formed one 

 estate, for the former had belonged to Earl jElfgar, of Mercia, and the latter to Earl Morcar, of North- 

 umbria, his son. 



1 See the perambulation of Shirewood forest in the time of Henry III given in Select Pleas of the 

 Forest (Selden Society). 



' Pipe Roll 31 Henry I (Rec. Com.) Men. Anff. viii, 1271. 



5 Hist, of Nottinghamshire, 1790, 224. 



6 Man. Angl. viii, 1314. ' Man. Angl. vi, 189. 



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