DOMESDAY SURVEY 



At the end of the account of the king's land come a number of 

 miscellaneous entries relating to Flintham, the former possession of one 

 ' Elwin,' Kneeton, Sneinton, Meering, and Misson. The latter is an 

 interesting vill, for three of the parcels into which it was divided were 

 appendages of manors outside our county. The king possessed 3 J bovates 

 there, over three of which the ' soke ' belonged to Kirton-in-Lindsey, 

 while the remaining half bovate is said to ' lie ' in ' Lestone,' and to be 

 held by ' Guy,' and by ' Alfred ' under him. ' Lestone ' is Laughton 

 near Gainsborough (Lines.), and we may safely recognize our Misson 

 tenants in Guy ' de Credun,' the owner of Laughton, and Alfred his man 

 who held of him there. 1 Of the other vills, Meering before the Conquest 

 had been held by a certain William who is not otherwise distinguished. 

 But immediately across the Trent from Meering lies Sutton upon Trent, 

 of which the previous owner is given as ' William the son of Scelward,' 

 and in view of the rarity of the name William before the Conquest, 

 and of the contiguity of these two places, we shall hardly be wrong 

 in assuming the identity of their former possessors. The case of 

 Sneinton will be discussed later. 8 



The valuations of the more important royal manors deserve con- 

 sideration in connexion with the very difficult question of the Domes- 

 day valet. Of Dunham we read : ' In King Edward's time it rendered 

 30 and 6 sestiers of honey, now 20 with all things that belong 

 there.' Here the sum named is evidently that which was actually 

 received for the manor, and the same must be the case at Arnold, which 

 is said in King Edward's time to have been worth (valebat] 4 ar >d 

 2 sestiers of honey, for no one would express a valuation in the modern 

 sense in terms of pounds and honey. Similarly the phrase used at 

 Orston, ' it was worth 30 by tale ' (adnumerum), points to a rent received 

 rather than to an estimate of potential revenue, and should be compared 

 with the Lincolnshire formulas valebat . . . cum pondere et arsione or 

 cum pensioned Outside the royal demesne we find one clear instance of 

 rent at Newark of which we read : ' In King Edward's time it rendered 

 50, now (it renders) 34 ' ; and a probable instance at Southwell which 

 had been worth (va/e&at) 4> but had risen to 40 r $s. Such round 

 figures as 40, 30, $o, when applied to large and heterogeneous 

 manors suggest that the latter have been ' farmed ' or set to rent as single 

 wholes, and here we may see at least a partial explanation of the fact 

 that no value is usually assigned to ' sokeland ' in our county ; at Newark 

 and on the royal manors quoted above its proceeds must be in- 

 cluded in the rent received from the whole manorial group. There is 

 much in Domesday Book to suggest that historical economists have 

 generally underestimated the play of monetary forces in the eleventh 

 century. 4 



1 Dom. Bk., f. 367. ! See below, p. 245. 



3 These formulas are found on the royal demesne at Kirkby Laythorpe, Kime, Boothby Pagnell, 

 and Wellingore. 



* See for the Domesday 'valet ' r. C. H. Essex, i, 364. 





