DOMESDAY SURVEY 



' lord ' to hold his court in his hall we might certainly gather from the 

 Fenton case that it was no less exceptional for a man to have jurisdiction 

 over a manor without possessing a court in which it could be exercised. 

 Also this particular manor, rated at 2 bovates, and valued T.R.E. at 

 ioj. 8*/., does not look like a promising field for private jurisdiction of 

 any kind, though it is only fair to add that ' Speravoc ' seems to have 

 been distinctly a more important man than his fellows. In the three 

 other Fenton estates, indeed, the Nottinghamshire manor seems to reach 

 its lowest point the three together had only been rated at i J bovates, 

 and valued at 5 shillings, but Sperhavoc had also held part of Sturton-le- 

 Steeple and the whole of West Burton with its sokeland in Everton and 

 Harwell. However, we have no need to make this qualification in the 

 case of ' Ulmer ' of Clarborough, who in 1086 held as a king's thegn 

 ij bovates in that vill, like Sperhavoc in Fenton 'with sac and soc with- 

 out a hall.' Ulmer's manor was only worth 2s., and there is nothing 

 known to connect him with any other vill, while ' Ulchil,' who had also 

 held part of Clarborough and had like Ulmer survived the Conquest, 

 though only as under-tenant to Roger de Busli, had exercised sac and soc 

 over land assessed at half a bovate, and worth no more than i6d. We 

 may suspect that these small manors seemed as great an anomaly to the 

 compilers of Domesday as they seem to us, for a great and general con- 

 solidation of the manorial system had taken place between 1066 and the 

 date of the survey. 1 



The under-tenants whom Roger de Busli had enfeoffed on his estates 

 are somewhat less shadowy persons than their English predecessors. The 

 highly important charter which Roger granted to his new foundation of 

 Blyth * was witnessed by a number of his ' men,' several of whom may 

 be recognized in Domesday. The Fulk de Lisors (Lusoris] of the charter, 

 for instance, appears with his full name at Breaston in Derbyshire, and 

 as Fulco simply at Gotham, Eaton, Weston, Clayworth, Clarborough, and 

 Harworth in our county. For two generations his manors descended 

 in his male line and then passed to the constables of Chester, several 

 donations to Blyth Priory marking the process of the descent. The 

 charter also warns us of the confusion that may arise from the fact of 

 two under-tenants bearing the same name, for it distinguishes ' Thorald,' 

 brother of Fulk de Lusoris from Thorald de Chevercort, founder of an 

 important early Nottinghamshire family, both of whom appear in the survey 

 simply as ' Turold.' It was very possibly the former of these men who held 

 at Hodsock ; at any rate the Lisors family and their tenants appear there 

 very soon after Domesday, but the ' Turold ' who held the next vill of 

 Carlton in Lindrick was undoubtedly Turold de Chevercort. Ralf de 

 Chevercort, probably his son, gave land in Carlton to Worksop Priory, 

 and his deed of gift was witnessed by Ernald the son of Claron, 3 whom 

 we may safely connect with the Claron of Roger de Busli's charter to 



1 See VinogradofF, The Growth of the Manor, 299-300. 

 1 Mon. Angl. iv, 623. 



* Abstract in Thoroton, History of Nottinghamshire, ed. Throsby, iii, 408-9. 

 I 225 29 



