A HISTORY OF DURHAM 



There is an odd story preserved by Spelman, which although as it stands 

 it can have no value as evidence, yet seems to contain the root of the matter, 

 the fact, namely, that the post-Conquest drengs were the descendants of those 

 Englishmen who for one reason or another were not dispossessed by William, 

 but transmitted their lands to their sons on the terms on which they had 

 received them from their fathers.' To what extent, if to any, these men 

 were touched by the great homage of 1085 cannot be determined. 



Returning to the field of well-attested fact we find that after the Con- 

 quest the drengs of the bishopric were maintaining this tradition of social 

 consequence in spite of certain incidents of tenure which would seem to 

 approach them to the villein class. Our earliest pipe-roll shows that the 

 keepers of the temporalities accounted separately for the manorial payments 

 and those due from the drengs and malmen of the manors under their charge.' 

 Then when the bishopric was again in the king's hand in 1197 and the 

 keepers were rendering an account of the tallage of the manors of the bishopric, 

 the quota of the drengs and farmers was again entered separately.* 



Boldon Book discloses the details of drengage in the second half of the 

 twelfth century. The incidents of the tenure at this time may be arranged 

 in three classes consisting respectively of personal services, money payments 

 and occasional obligations. Under the first of these week-work and boon- 

 days such as the villeins gave occur in all cases but one,* but these are 

 commonly rendered by the dreng's men or his ' whole household except the 

 housewife.' Carting of some kind, generally of wine, was also quite usual. ^ 

 Probably the incidents most characteristic of drengage were the duty of 

 taking part in the bishop's hunt, the ' magna caza,' including the provision 

 of a horse and a dog, which had to be cared for throughout the year, and the 

 obligation of carrying the bishop's messages. ' Drengus pascit canem et 

 equum, et vadit in magna caza cum ii leporariis et v cordis . . . et vadit in 

 legationibus ' ^ is a characteristic entry that frequently recurs, so frequently, 

 indeed, that Mr. Seebohm was led to disregard the other incidents of the 

 tenure.^ But, as we have seen, men who were not drengs were holding by 

 services in the hunt and the forest, and drengage had other attributes. This 

 duty of going the bishop's errands, for example, appears at once as a survival 

 connecting the twelfth-century drengs with the riding-men and radchenistres 

 of an earlier time. This connexion is strengthened when we find that in 

 some cases the dreng was required to render what, under the name ' utware,' 



1 Spelman, Glossarium, s.v. Drenches ; Ibid. Tiistoria Familiie de Sharnburn, in Reliquiae Spclmannianx 

 (Lond. 1723, pp. 189-200); Du Cangc, Gloss, s.v. Drench. The manuscript in cjucstion, written in a 

 sixteenth-century hand, seems now to be in the Ashmolean collection ; its spuriousncss has long been 

 recognized; see ///.</. o/'A'o;/! (lo vols., Norwich, 1781 ff.), s.v. Smithdon, ix. 80-82; Francis Hlomeficld, 

 Norfolk (11 vols., Lond. 1805-1810), x. 350-353 ; David llumc. Hist, of Engl. (cd. Oxford, I 826), note H., 

 I. 425 ; Joseph Nicolson and Richard Hum, ll'rstmor. and Cumb. (2 vols., Lond. 1777), i. 22. There was 

 much speculation in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries as to what eftcct tiic Norman Conquest might have 

 had upon the status of non-combatants, and a tendency m.ay be discerned to account for tcnurial peculiarities 

 by the survival of such persons : cf. Di/ilogiis de Scaccaiio, L x. (ed. Hughes, Crump and Johnson), p. 100, 

 and the learned note of the editors, pp. 194-196 ; liraclon, fol. 7, cited in VinogradotF, o/>. cit., 121-126. 

 Professor VinogradofT argues that the privileged villeins on ancient demesnes represent a survival from Anglo- 

 Saxon times, a case exactly parallel to the traditions recorded in the text. 



* Pipe R. 31 Hen. L in Iloldon Hook (Surlees Soc), App. p. iii. 



* Pipe R. 8 Ric. L in Boldon Book (Surtees Soc), App. p. vii. 



* e.g. Oxcnhall, Great Haughton, Wliessoe, Sheraton. The exception is Thornton, where it is expressly 

 stated that the men arc to come out for week-work from every liousc ' exccpta dcnno drengi.' 



' e.g. Hcrrington. « liinchestcr. ' Seebohm, yillage Commmii/y, 71. 



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