THE DOMESDAY SURVEY 



the other had not depreciated at all, and was actually valued, at the time 

 of the Survey, 20 per cent, higher than under Edward the Confessor. 

 In Cambridgeshire, again, it is possible to show that every manor in a 

 certain Hundred obtained the same reduction ; but in Surrey there are 

 great varieties in the reductions within a given Hundred. 



The sweeping character of these reductions and their apparently 

 capricious distribution were discussed by me so far back as 1886, when I 

 showed that they were distinctive of a group of four counties, Sussex, 

 Surrey, Hampshire and Berks. 1 Two causes suggest themselves for these 

 reductions being made : one is the ravage wrought on manors that were 

 traversed by William's host ; the other is the clamour of his first 

 grantees for a reduction of the liability to taxation on the manors they 

 received. That William's army traversed portions of the counties thus 

 affected is no doubt the case,* but no connection can be established be- 

 tween the depreciated values and the reductions of assessment ; while the 

 absence of such reductions in Kent, a county which must have suffered 

 equally, is fatal, apparently, to this suggestion, as it also is to the other. 3 



But what is certain, and most remarkable, is that the reduced assess- 

 ments were not of a permanent character. It may, at first sight, sound 

 improbable that the record from which there was no appeal, the record 

 which was almost sacrosanct, could be so completely set aside. Surrey, 

 however, which, under the Confessor, was assessed, according to Domes- 

 day Book, at 1,830 hides, 4 a total which had suffered a huge reduction by 

 1086, must have had it, before 1 130, raised again to the high figure at 

 which it had stood before the Conquest. This, which seems to have 

 been unsuspected, is proved not only by the sum of the danegeld accounted 

 for in that year, which represents, as observed above, 1,750^ hides, but 

 by the details of the levy. The total assessments of the Archbishop of 

 Canterbury's manors in Surrey amounted, when added up, to 219 hides, of 

 which 8 were represented by St. Paul's manor of Barnes (fo. 34), the net 

 total being thus 211 hides. In 1086 the gross total had been reduced 

 from 219 to 5j|. But the liability to danegeld of his manors in 1 130 is 

 represented by a sum denoting 2 1 1 1 hides, which is evidently intended 

 for a return to the pre-Domesday total. The moiety of the great manor 

 of Beddington which was held by Miles Crispin was assessed in 1086 at 

 3 hides as against 25 hides under Edward the Confessor and his manor of 

 ' Cisedune ' at I hide as against 5 hides, the total for his holding being 

 thus reduced from 30 hides to 4 (fo. 36^). In 1130 Brian Fitz Count, 



1 Domesday Studies, I. 110-114. 



2 See remarks below on the changes in value of the manors ; and the paper by Mr. Baring on 

 'The Conqueror's Footprints in Domesday' (English Historical Review [1898], XIII. 17-25). 



* These reductions must be carefully distinguished from those consequent on an actual diminution 

 in the extent of the manor itself. The assessment of Bermondsey, for instance, was reduced from 1 3 

 hides to 1 2, because the count of Mortain had secured one hide for himself ; and that of Ewell was 

 similarly lowered from 15! hides to 13^, because 2j hides had been alienated from the manor by reeves. 

 It should be noted that in the latter case the reduced assessment is entered as ' ad firmam,' not ' ad 

 geldum.' 



* Maitland's Domesday Book and Beyond, p. 505. I give this figure on the high authority of the 

 Professor, but Mr. Maiden and Mr. Baring, who have counted independently the hides T.R.E., make 

 the total to be just over 2,000 (2,002^ ?). 



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