BOLDON BOOK 



one load of wood had to be carted for every bovate, and when the bishop 

 travelled an indefinite amount of carriage service miglit be required of the 

 villeins. There was no render in kind, but every bovate had to pay ^s. All 

 of the vills of this type are situated in the Darlington ward.^ 



The distinctive mark of the third class is service in the forest or in 

 connexion with the bishop's great autumn ' battue ' known as the ' magna 

 caza.' Stanhope, the typical forest vill, contained twenty villeins holding a 

 bovate apiece and paying every man 2s. on his land. They were responsible 

 for the usual agricultural services and for carriage as well, but part of the 

 latter duty consisted in conveying game to Durham and Auckland. Then 

 at the time of the ' magna caza ' the whole villein community was required 

 to build and furnish the bishop's temporary lodgings, consisting of a kitchen, 

 a larder, and a kennel. The villeins of the neighbouring Aucklandshire 

 completed the encampment by supplying a hall sixty feet by sixteen, a 

 chapel forty feet by fifteen, a buttery, store-room, chamber, and privy ; and 

 by enclosing the whole temporary settlement with a hedge or fence. These 

 Stanhope tenants, moreover, were obliged to find whatever litter might be 

 required and to fetch the bishop's supplies from Wolsingham. Tenants of 

 other forest vills furnished ropes and dogs for the ' battue.' Services of this 

 sort, as well as the keep (and we may suppose the training) of dogs and 

 horses, and the care of the deer in their breeding season, were not confined to 

 the villeins, but were required, as we shall presently see, of the tenants in 

 drengage as well.' 



The boroughs of the bishopric will receive the separate treatment which 

 they demand in another part of this chapter. They are introduced here, 

 however, on account of their agricultural aspect, which was still prominent, 

 one might well say predominant. It is mainly as agricultural communities 

 that they figure in Boldon Book. Most of them, indeed, were of Bishop 

 Pudsey's creation, and, with the exception of Durham, may be regarded as 

 very rudimentary municipalities. 



Over against the four well-defined types which we have been examining 

 stand the vills of which we know no more than their value, their services and 

 renders having been for one reason or another left unrecorded. These, again, 

 may be arranged in three subdivisions, although if the details were known 

 any one of the vills so grouped might conform to one of our first three 

 general types. The fourth type is excluded, for the erection of a vill into a 

 borough would not be passed over in silence. In the first place, there are 

 thirty-seven vills held of the bishop by tenants whose names are recorded in 

 Boldon Book. Six of these are held, feudally, either by knight-service or in 

 alms.* Sixteen more are held by a service which, as will presently be argued, 

 is a form of drengage.* The tenants of the remaining fifteen hold either by 

 some form of fee-farm, consisting of a money rent, or else by the bishop's 



1 Darlington, Blackwell, Cockcrton, Great Haughton, Whessoe. 



' The list of the forest vills follows. It is to be noted that the cornage-paying vills of Aucklandshire are 

 included as having forest-services. They form part, therefore, of two classes : — 



I. — Darlington H'ard. Stanhope, North Auckland, West Auckland, Escomb, Newton. 

 II. — Chester IVard. Lanchester, Iveston, Marley, Britlcy, Triblcy, Holmeside. 



* Pcncher, Edderacrcs, Trimdon, Muggleswick, Rcyermore, Farnacrcs. 



♦ Plawsworth, Little Usworth, Washington, Little Burdon, TwizcU, Heworth, Oxenhall, Thickley 

 (Newton), Lutrington, HenknoU, Cornsay, Hcdley, Edmondbyers, Hunstanworth, Hcrrington, Sheraton. 



271 



