THE DOMESDAY SURVEY 



master, Peter the Norman sheriff evicted the English thegn and his 

 mother, and maintained before the Domesday commissioners, in defiance 

 of William's writ, that he held the manor by gift of the king. 



Viewed as a piece of clerical work the Hertfordshire portion of 

 Domesday Book is a favourable specimen of the whole. But there are a 

 few strange slips. In a Shenley entry the scribe appears to have written 

 so/' for pore', in a Rushden one sol' for llb\ and in one relating to Boreson 

 soch for sol' ; he has also written dim hid' for dint car" in an Aldbury 

 entry, and substituted ' xxxiii ' for ' xxiii ' at Cheshunt, and 'iiii' for 'xiiii' 

 at Stanstead. And there is one instructive error. The land of the 

 abbot of Ramsey is duly entered in the text, but in the list of holders' 

 names, preceding 'the king's land,' it is erroneously omitted. From this 

 we learn that the text was not compiled in accordance with the list, but 

 vice versa. Moreover, in the text the abbot's land is duly numbered as 

 ' xi,' but in the list its omission transfers ' xi ' to the entry which follows. 

 There is thus caused a discrepancy between the list and the text, which 

 continues down to what the text calls ' the land of the king's thegns ' and 

 numbers as 'xlii,' while the list enters ' Derman and other Englishmen of 

 the king ' as ' xli.' Then, in order that the two may close with the 

 same number, the text repeats ' xlii ' for the land of Rothais and thus 

 produces a seeming concordance with the closing numbers in the list. 

 From all this it would seem to follow that, when the text was written, 

 a space was left for the list of holders, which was compiled subsequently 

 from the text. The numbering of the fiefs then revealed a discrepancy 

 caused by the omission of the abbot of Ramsey in the list, and the 

 numeral ' xlii ' was consequently repeated in the text to bring the total of 

 the entries in the text and the list into superficial harmony. 



Perhaps the most perplexing statement on Hertfordshire in Domes- 

 day Book is one that is not found under Hertfordshire itself. In the 

 volume dealing with the Eastern Counties the survey of the great manor 

 of Hatfield (Broadoak), Essex which had been held by Harold under 

 the Confessor states that 'there belonged to this manor T.R.E., 3 bere- 

 wites, Herefort [Hertford], Emwella [Amwell], and Hodesduna [Hod- 

 desdon], lying in Herefortsira [Hertfordshire], which are now held by 

 Ralf de Limeseia ' (ii. 2<), and we further read that ' the 3 berewites 

 were then worth 12 pounds.' Of these three Amwell alone is entered in 

 Domesday as held by Ralf and as formerly held by Harold, to whom, we 

 learn, it was worth 1 8 pounds. Independent entries in Domesday vary, at 

 times, considerably, but for so remarkable a discrepancy as is revealed by 

 the above entries it is difficult to suggest an explanation. The statement, 

 however, that Ralf held ' Hertford ' is noteworthy in view of the fact 

 that he gave to St. Albans a church he had built there, with a hide of 

 land appendant, which became the nucleus of Hertford Priory. 



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