DOMESDAY SURVEY 



Domesday scribe to a rigid consistency of language which the whole 

 record shows to have been to a remarkable degree alien to his nature. 

 Mr. Round has shown that the terms ' manerium ' and 'terra' were 

 often used indifferently as equating one another,' and the conclusion to 

 be drawn from this is expressed by Professor Vinogradoff ' when he says 

 that ' we find the hall, the grange, and the berewick as constitutive 

 elements and adjuncts of the manor, and this shows that the essence of 

 the manor consisted in its economic organization — it was an estate to 

 begin with, whatever other meanings and applications the term may 

 have had.' The manor, alike in name and feudal significance, was a still 

 young institution of Norman origin, probably partially introduced into 

 England by the foreign favourites of the Confessor. The invaders on 

 their arrival found a certain number of manors existing, formed many 

 more themselves, and applied the term to any estate whose organization 

 approximated, however loosely, to the condition of a manor. It is not 

 unnatural that there should be the same confusion between a manor and 

 an estate during the early childhood of the manorial system that we find 

 when that system was moribund in the eighteenth century. At the 

 same time the term had a certain significance, though vague and in- 

 determinate, and it is necessary to examine what light is afforded by the 

 portion of Domesday here under examination. 



It is clear that the essential feature of the manor was its hall ; so 

 far was this the case that the two were regarded as equivalent, and it 

 was possible to write ' in his duabus terris nisi una halla ' (fo. 261^), or 

 the converse but similar phrase, ' tunc fuerunt ii halls modo in uno 

 manerio ' (fo. 27). This 'hall' appears in the concrete as an actual 

 building — the manor-house or court — under 'Apedroc,' where a virgate 

 is mentioned where the Count has his hall as Harold had before him (fo. 

 2 lb). In it Professor Maitland thought he saw the house at which 

 the geld was paid,^ a theory which derives some support from a phrase 

 used of Westmeston — ' non fuit ibi halla neque geldavit ut dicunt ' (fo. 

 27), but which has been shown by Mr. Round ^ to be based on insuffi- 

 cient grounds, so far at least as certain counties are concerned. Another 

 phrase which equates with hall is ' caput manerii ', which occurs under 

 Ditchling, where six copses are said to have belonged ' ad caput 

 manerii' (fo. 25^), or again under ' Nerewelle,' where Robert 'the 

 cook ' is said to hold the ' caput manerii ' (fo. 1 8) with two virgates. 

 In this last phrase one is tempted to see the Saxon ' heafod-bodel ' ; 

 and indeed the mansio or manerium in its primitive sense of a manse is 

 almost a translation of the bodel — the abode, and points us back to our 

 former conclusion that the manor in its origin was an estate centering 

 upon the house of the landlord or his representative. This seems as 

 far as our evidence will safely carry us, and so far our conclusions are 

 applicable to any county, but we have now to consider in what respects 

 the manors of Sussex differed from those of other districts. 



1 Engl. Hist. Rev. xv. 293. 2 Growth of the Manor, p. 301. 



a Domesday Book and Beyond, p. 107. ■■ Engl. Hist. Rev. xv. 293-5. 



355 



