HISTORY OF HARTING. 23 



from the 80 hides of Edward the Confessor's survey 

 (see Domesday), and measuring half-way to its still 

 lower point of decline, when in the Domesday survey 

 it numbered only 47 hides. The charter specifies 

 " jjone ham Heartingas on sixtigum hidum (' the es- 

 tate of Harting containing sixty hides')" as exchanged 

 "wrS 'Sam mynsterlande fte IrS into Elig ('against 

 the minsterland that lieth at Ely')." The King grants 

 to ^thelwold the lands of Ely for the purpose of the 

 re-establishment of the monastery there, together with 

 " fryhamas (three estates), Mildeburna, Earmingford, 

 and NorSwold," and ten thousand eels ("eel-fixa 

 =eel fixings"} from "set-wyllan" (some wells some- 

 where), besides various rights of jurisdiction and the 

 fourth penny on the taxes due from Granta-briege 

 (Cambridge). The old abbey lands at Ely having been 

 long desolate after the Danish raids, had naturally 

 come into the possession of the Crown ; so that 

 ^Ethelwold, the great church-builder of his time, ex- 

 changed Harting with the Crown in order to rebuild 

 the monastery at Ely. In charter No. 564, dated 

 970 A.D., the same transaction is referred to, and the 

 place is spelt in its usual medieval form " Hertingas." 



The name of " Canon Lands" near Bohemia Hollow, 

 the only 23 acres out of nearly 8,000 that are tithe- 

 free by ancient prescription, possibly recalls the time 

 when the See of Winchester had possession here. 



The manor of Harting thus taken in exchange by 

 the Crown in 970 was, we are told in the Domesday 

 record, assigned to Gytha or Gida, mother of King 

 Harold ; and thus formed part of the possessions of 

 royalty at the time of the Conquest.* 



Gida or Gytha, sister to Suane (Sweyn) King of Denmark 

 (Burrell 5689, p. 284), 2nd wife and widow of Earl Godwin, 

 mother of Harold, possessed some 39,000 acres of land, the 

 greater part of Kent and Sussex. She lost three sons at Hastings, 

 Harold, Gurth, and Leofwine. Sir H. Ellis (general introduc- 

 tion to Domesday, Vol. II, 117) says that "she died by stroke of 

 lightning in Flanders." 



