BOLDON BOOK 



preserved a purer reading, which common sense, or internal probability, may enable us to discern. 

 There are in B a dozen or so passages in which this seems to be the case, and they now demand 

 our attention. In the Gateshead entry, with regard to the demesne B reads ' cum instauramento 

 ii carrucarum,' A gives ' increments,' and C and D ' incremento.' Now, as we have seen, the stock of 

 so many ploughs was the regular phrase of describing the content of the demesne farm ; it is often 

 used in this sense by A, as at Great Haughton, and since the X derivatives differ among themselves 

 here, we shall do better to follow the reading of B. The same argument will apply to the smith's 

 land at Shotton. I give the variants in parallel columns : 



B. A. C and D. 



Fabcr i bovatam de xv acris Faber I bovatam de xv s(olidis) Faber i bovatam pro 15*. 

 pro suo servitio. pro suo servicio. pro suo servitio. 



The confusion here may well have been due to a clerical error in X, but, in view of what we 

 have seen with regard to the custom of industrial holdings and the normal size of the bovate, there 

 can be no doubt that B gives us the true reading. Again, under Edderacres the usual proper name 

 Nigillus as given by B is clearly intended rather than the uncommon ' Sigillus ' of A, C, and D ; 

 and in the last line of the same entry the sense demands the ' reddit ' of B rather than the 

 ' reddendo ' of A, C, and D. The word ' bordarius,' as we have seen, occurs in Boldon Book twice, 

 at Sedgefield and at Middleham and Cornford. The terms of the entry leave little doubt as to what 

 sort of a tenant is meant a bordar, namely, and not a bondman. But A, C, and D give the unusual 

 and clearly incorrect form ' bondarius,' and it is only from B that we get the accurate term 

 ' bordarius.' At Garmondsway, where Bishop Pudsey's sheriff Ralf Haget had held land, the name 

 is spelt ' Hager' 1 in all the texts except B. At Mainsforth, according to B, certain eight bovates 

 render eight hens and eighty eggs, but A, C, and D give one hen and four eggs, which is far too 

 small in comparison with the like render of other vills. At Norton, B reads, ' tota villa reddit 

 ii vaccas de metride,' while A, C, and D give ' ii marcas de metride ' ; but on turning to Hatfield's 

 Survey we find that the tenants of Norton ' solvunt pro ii vaccis de metrich . . . 1 2s.' * It might 

 of course be objected that Hatfield's Survey was making use of some late or corrupt text of Boldon 

 Book, and that in 1183 these Norton tenants had compounded for their render of milch-cows. But 

 the balance of probability is the other way ; there is no other case in Boldon Book of a money 

 composition for this particular render, and Hatfield's Survey, in all cases where the incident occurs, 

 shows us that the composition had been at the rate of six shillings for a cow, not one mark as here. 

 At West Auckland, where the renders and services are calculated ' de unaquaque bovata,' B records 

 1 8 bovates and 18 villeins, but A, C, and D give 21 bovates and 18 villeins. Although this of 

 course is not impossible, the symmetrical arrangement commends itself as more probable. In the 

 record of Elstan's land at the same place, A, C, and D omit the necessary 'sua ' in line 3 ; and in line 6, 

 instead of ' ilia terra est in manu Episcopi,' read ' alia terra est modo in manu Episcopi,' which 

 scarcely makes sense in the context. We retain, therefore, the readings of B as they occur in the 

 printed text. At Wolsingham, A, C, and D read, ' tres coronatores xvii acras et reddunt mmmc 

 scutellas,' which is inherently improbable, as the coroner does not appear in the Durham records 

 until 1279,* and as it is not likely that then or at any other time he would be rendering trenchers. 

 B gives the manifestly correct reading, ' tornatores.' This slip may fairly be charged to the account 

 of the careless scribe, that scapegoat of critics, who is responsible for the success of so many 

 hypotheses and such countless emendations. B records the vill of Holome (Hulam), where A alone 

 reads ' Bolmum.' But in a charter by which Ralph Haget grants this vill to his nephew, 4 and again 

 in Hatfield's Survey, 6 we have the assurance that the reading of B is correct. Finally, at Grendon, 

 where B gives the name of a certain tenant as ' Stephanus,* A, C, and D have the barbarous form 

 1 Thepers.' Although these cases unquestionably help us toward a purer text of Boldon Book 

 there is nothing in them to weaken our contention that X is an older, and in the main a much 

 better version of our document than Z, although a derivative of Z has enabled us to correct fourteen 

 slips, all verbal and mostly no more than clerical errors, in the derivative of X. 



Before proceeding to state the conclusions of this necessarily minute and tedious examination, 

 we must consider one case which has no direct bearing upon our argument, but which must be 

 noticed as it has the appearance of an interpolation in all our texts. This is the vill of Whickham. 

 The only divergence among the four texts in this entry consists of trifling verbal difference, and the 

 inversion of the order of one or two unimportant words ; these may safely be disregarded, and jret 

 there is something in the passage that arrests our attention and awakes our suspicion. Unlike any 

 other entry in Boldon Book, all the villein renders and services are described in the past tense, 



1 We get the true spelling in the charters, see FeoJ., 132 n., 134 n. 



* Hatfiekfi Survey (Surtees Soc.), p. 175. 8 Lapsley, County Palatine, 86. 



* FeoJ., 136 n. * Hatfielfs Survey (Surtees Soc.), 153. 

 Al. Thepres, Theptrs, the form is Thepls. 



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