NOTES ON A BOOK CALLED DOMESDAY. 37 



end a few- 10ng agreements with original signatures of the 

 witnesses. There are two documents of quite a different sort 

 from all the rest, of which one may as well be mentioned now. 

 It is a record of the appointment of the Duke of Richmond to be 

 High Steward of Dorchester, 12, Car. ii. This was the husband 

 of la belle Stewart, who sat as Britannia, as stamped on our coins. 

 Now, as to the mass of documents above described, as enrolled in 

 Domesday, I must ask your indulgence and kind pardon for under- 

 taking to write a paper about them. I have, truly, examined every 

 one of them, some repeatedly, others more slightly. But I feel 

 that it needs some one with more command of time than I havej 

 and more avidity for details and minutiae, really to work what might 

 turn out a valuable mine. Having thus disclaimed all pretence to 

 full acquaintance with Domesday, let me hasten to give a few 

 gleanings from my notes, made while working through the book 

 most kindly lent to me more than once by the Mayor and Corpora- 

 tion. In the first place some details about Dorchester topography 

 may be gathered. The possessions conveyed in the 444 chartse above 

 mentioned are nearly all of them burgages, burgagia. I don't find 

 burgage in Skeat's Concise Dictionary. I take it, however, origin- 

 ally to mean a piece of property constituting the owner a burgess. 

 The boundaries of each burgagium, tenementum, or placia are of 

 course given rot as they would be in a Saxon charter, in the 

 vulgar tongue, but in Latin, like the rest of the documents. Of 

 course every description, nearly, involves the name of at least one 

 street. We constantly find High-street, Altus Vicus Occidentalis 

 or Orientalis as the case may be. But it is odd that the title 

 " High " is not confined to our High-street. In f. Ixxxviii., 

 7 Hen. VI., 1428 e.#., South-street is called Altus Vicus Australis. 

 Nay, Friary Lane was "High" in 7 Hen. IV., 1405. A burgage 

 is "in alto vico boreali que ducit versus fratres minores." There 

 was a cross there, by-the-bye, at that same time " ex opposite 

 cruci que ducit versus fratres minores." Sometimes Friary Lane gets 

 its name in English Freren Lane, as in f. x., 21 Ric. II. But it is 

 confusing to find two Vici Boriales. In f. xxxv., 8 Henry IV., 



