DOMESDAY SURVEY 



held Basford, Nottinghamshire,* 8 between them. It may also be noted that 

 the entry relating to Arnesby makes an addition to the population of the 

 borough of Leicester, for we are told that ' in Leicester there is one burgess 

 who belongs to this vill,' who nevertheless is not included in the survey of 

 the county town. 



' The land of William Buenvaslet,' which is entered next, is perhaps 

 the smallest estate anywhere described in Domesday under a separate rubrica- 

 tion. We are merely told that, ' William Buenvaslet holds two carucates of 

 land in Ravenstone. It was and is waste.' William Loveth, whose fief is 

 described at the head of the next folio of the survey, only held land to 

 the value of 501. in Leicestershire. In the margin of the MS. against the 

 entry of his fief there is placed the note : ' Stofalde i?i, p', i, v*, W.' Taken 

 by itself this is quite unintelligible, but in the Northants Domesday William 

 Loveth is assigned the third part of a waste virgate in Stotfold (now part 

 of Rothwell) hundred, a sum which exactly answers to the contracted 

 statement contained in the present note. As William Loveth held 

 land in Theddingworth in Leicestershire adjoining Stotfold hundred, it 

 is probable that his small holding in Northants was situated immediately 

 to the south of the Welland opposite this point. Geoffrey Alselin, who 

 follows in the record, is a person of more importance. In Leicestershire, 

 as elsewhere, he had succeeded to the estates of the powerful English 

 thegn Tochi the son of Outi, whose holding in our county had been 

 small but singularly compact. It consisted of land in the adjoining vills 

 of Hallaton, Goadby, Keythorpe, Billesdon, and Rolleston, and so far 

 as our evidence goes, the possession of each of these vills had passed in its 

 entirety from Tochi to Geoffrey. Manor and vill so rarely coincide in the 

 Danelaw that the present instance is worth recording, especially in view 

 of the fact that Tochi had exercised rights of sac and soc over the 

 entire estate. 



Geoffrey de Wirce, whose lands are entered in succession to those of 

 Geoffrey Alselin, held one of the largest estates in the county. His lands 

 were mainly situated in the north-eastern wapentake of Framland, and were 

 to a large extent dependent upon the great manor of Melton Mowbray, 

 whose tithes he had already bestowed upon his recent foundation of Monks 

 Kirby Priory in Warwickshire. The description of the fief presents certain 

 difficulties which cannot wholly be explained at present, of which perhaps 

 the most formidable relates to the assessment of Melton Mowbray itself. 

 This instance has already been mentioned for its bearing upon the question 

 of the Leicestershire hides, but the whole passage deserves quotation. We 

 are told that ' Geoffrey holds Melton. There are 7 hides and i carucate of 

 land and i bovate. In each hide there are 14! carucates of land. In 

 demesne there are 4 ploughs and 4 serfs and 20 villeins with 2 priests 

 and 14 bordars who have 6j ploughs.' Now we have seen enough to 

 know that a Leicestershire manor will normally be rated heavily in pro- 

 portion both to its agricultural condition and to its reputed value, but 

 an assessment of IO2| carucates on an estate of this size would represent 

 a burden of taxation absurdly out of all possible relation to agrarian fact, 

 and the Leicestershire Survey assigns the modest sum of 15 carucates to 



48 V.CM. Notts, i, 270. 



295 



