LEICESTERSHIRE 

 SURVEY 



(TWELFTH CENTURT) 



THE Leicestershire Survey, the translation of which forms a natural 

 supplement to the Domesday description of this county, is one of 

 a series of three similar records which were compiled at different 

 times during the second half of the reign of Henry I. The 

 corresponding surveys of Lindsey and Northamptonshire have long been 

 known to antiquaries, but the existence of the present document was never 

 suspected before its discovery in the Public Record Office by Mr. Round, and 

 its publication by him in Feudal England.^ Belonging as it does to the years 

 1124 g, 2 the middle of the darkest period in all English local history, it 

 affords invaluable evidence in regard to two most important subjects, the 

 assessment of the Leicestershire vills to the Danegeld, and the devolution of 

 the greater fiefs in this county during the obscure forty years which follow 

 1086. The notes which are appended to the following translation are 

 intended to connect each entry in the survey, whenever possible, with the 

 corresponding entry in Domesday, but there are certain matters of general 

 interest in connexion with the record which can most conveniently be 

 discussed here. 



The survey, as we possess it, is merely a fragment, beginning abruptly 

 in the middle of an entry relating to some unnamed vill in Gartree wapentake. 

 The account of Gosecote wapentake follows at length, and it is probable that 

 the survey of Framland wapentake with which the record closes is complete. 

 It ends abruptly, it is true, but so far as can be seen, every vill in the wapen- 

 take is accounted for. The same can unfortunately not be said of the 

 description of Gosecote wapentake. A compact block of six vills, Barrow 

 on Soar, Seagrave, Prestwold, Wymeswold, Burton on the Wolds, and Walton 

 on the Wolds, all situated between the Foss Way, the Soar, and the Notting- 

 hamshire border, and with a total assessment according to Domesday of more 

 than eighty carucates, is entirely and inexplicably omitted from the survey. 



1 pp. 196-214. The following translation is made from the survey as printed in Feudal England, where 

 its bearing on problems of assessment and on Henry I's disposition of forfeited fiefs is discussed. 



' The first date is fixed by the mention of King David (succeeded April, 1 124) ; and Mr. Round considers 

 that the shrievalty of Hugh of Leicester, who is described as sheriff in the present survey, ended at Michael- 

 mas, 1 129. 



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