A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE 



follows the description of his manor of Grimston, which, though desig- 

 nated as a * manerium ' by the symbol M in the margin of the entry, and 

 possessing five pieces of appurtenant sokeland, is described as being a 

 berewick in Mansfield. Then comes the survey of the latter, which is 

 followed by a string of place-names with assessment figures annexed, of 

 which we read that the total amounts to 13 carucates 6J bovates. This 

 is not true, for these figures work out at the much neater total of 1 5 caru- 

 cates ; but the survey then goes on to describe some of these places with 

 their agricultural details, a plan which is followed more consistently in 

 the account of the soke of Grantham in the Lincolnshire Domesday. 

 One touch of personal interest occurs in these last details, for at Warsop 

 we are told that ' there is i bovate which a blind man holds in alms of the 

 king.' He is entered again on the thegns' land at the very end of the 

 survey, and as the assessment of Warsop is complete as a 3~carucate vill 

 without his bovate, it is quite possible that he was exempted from pay- 

 ment of the geld. Professor Freeman rather unnecessarily suggested that 

 he had been ' blinded by the king's orders.' l We may also note that 

 i bovate which the king held in Farnsfield ' prope Snotingeham ' 

 as belonging to Grimston soke is not improbably entered again on 

 Walter de Aincurt's land as that bovate which was ' the king's, but 

 belonged to the hundred of Southwell,' to which reference has already 

 been made. 9 



The history of the eight Domesday wapentakes of Nottinghamshire is 

 reasonably clear, the only changes of importance being that Oswardbeck has 

 been united to Bassetlaw, of which it forms the North Clay division, and 

 ' Lide ' to Thurgarton, the name of the former being preserved in the old 

 description of the latter as the wapentake of ' Thurgarton-a-Lee.' It is 

 always worth while to try to trace the order in which the hundreds (or 

 wapentakes) are entered in the survey, especially where, as in this county, 

 the rubrication is not consistent, for a sequence once established may throw 

 light on difficult problems of identification, and also has a bearing on the 

 question of possible circuits which may have been made by the Domesday 

 commissioners. In Nottinghamshire, the fief of Roger de Busli, which is 

 rubricated throughout, shows the following order : Newark, Bassetlaw, 

 ' Lide,' Thurgarton, Rushcliffe, (Broxtow), Bingham, Oswardbeck. The 

 nine manors of Count Alan's fief, which is not rubricated at all, were 

 scattered over five wapentakes which are entered in the above order, 

 which also appears on the fiefs of Walter de Aincurt, Geoffrey Alselin, 

 and (with the exception of his first manor) William Peverel. It is also 

 observed on the king's land, for the description of his possessions in 

 Oswardbeck wapentake immediately after Mansfield is explained by their 

 connexion with the latter manor ; and on that of Gilbert de Gand the 

 mistaken rubrication of Newark wapentake at the head of his fief points 

 to a practice by which the survey of a tenant's lands would normally 

 begin therewith. It will be evident that this sequence violates all 

 geographical order, for it leaps at once from Bingham wapentake in the 



1 Norman Conquest, iv, 197. * See above, p. 219. 



244 



