THE DOMESDAY SURVEY 



Guildford he turned west past Compton and Wanborough (15, [9], 15) to Farnham 

 (55, [30], 47)- 



That the depreciation so strongly marked on certain Surrey manors in 

 the early days of William was due to the march of his host through Surrey 

 cannot well be doubted ; but it is very hazardous to form too definite 

 conclusions. Ownership, as well as geographical position, has to be 

 taken into consideration. Mr. Baring considered that, in Kent, the 

 Archbishop of Canterbury's manors were specially spared ravage ; and, 

 in Surrey, Mr. Maiden holds, Queen Edith's manors were spared, while 

 Oswold, an English thegn, a man with whom we shall meet below, 

 saved his land from ravage by early submission. 1 



We stand on surer ground when we pass to a third of the subjects 

 with which the Domesday Survey was avowedly concerned. In addition 

 to assessment and valuation its compilers were also to record the names of 

 those who had held the land at the death of Edward the Confessor, and 

 of those who held it at the time of the Survey ; they were to inform 

 King William of his land, in the words of the native chronicle, ' how it 

 was set and by what men.' 



At the head of these is always placed, by Domesday Book, the King 

 himself. In Surrey the King appears as the successor of three different 

 persons. He secured, of course, as Edward's heir, the Crown manors 

 of Woking, Stoke, Wallington,' Kingston-on-Thames, Ewell, 8 and 

 Godalming, and to these he added, on the death of Edward's widow 

 Edith (1075), those of Reigate (' Cherchefelle '), Fetcham, Shere and 

 Dorking, which had been held by her. He had also seized, at the out- 

 set, for himself the manors of the fallen Harold. Next to the King's 

 land in the survey was placed that of the religious houses and ecclesiastical 

 dignitaries. The local abbey of Chertsey towered, in the size of its fief, 

 above any other monastery that held lands in the county. Its possessions, 

 of course, were safe from confiscation, and this must have greatly 

 hampered William in rewarding his eager followers. Indeed the entries 

 in the Survey distinctly convey the impression that the abbey's titles 

 were jealously scanned with the object of detecting any cases in which 

 Englishmen had placed themselves and their lands under the protection 

 of the house in order to escape their forfeiture. It will be necessary to 

 return to this subject below. 



Next in extent to the Chertsey lands were those of the Archbishop 

 of Canterbury, chiefly consisting of the great manors of Croydon and of 

 Mortlake. Farnham, then as now, was held by the bishop of Win- 

 chester, while ' the new minster ' of that same city possessed the manor 

 of Sanderstead, which was rising rapidly in value. The small estates 

 held by the abbeys of Westminster and of Barking complete, with St. 

 Paul's manor of Barnes, the endowments possessed in Surrey by the 

 English religious houses. But Domesday reveals the changes that 



1 History of Surrey [1900], pp. 63-64, 70. 



* It is not actually stated in Domesday by whom these manors had been previously held. 



279 



