A HISTORY OF BUCKINGHAMSHIRE 



20, or 30 hides. But the prevalence of this system can only be pro- 

 perly realized when the vills which had been divided among several 

 holders are laboriously reconstructed. Mr. Ragg, the translator of the 

 Domesday text, has compiled elaborate tables for each Hundred, showing 

 how the vills were held, and to these I am indebted for two examples 

 taken from neighbouring and important vills. 



AMERSHAM CHESHAM 



H. V. H. V. 



Bishop of Bayeux o 2 Bishop of Bayeux 02 



Count of Mortain 02 12 



Geoffrey de Mandeville .... 7 2 Hugh de Bolbec 82 



Hugh de Bolbec o 2 Turstin Mantel 02 



Turstin Mantel 02 Alsi 40 



Gozelin the Breton . .02 



10 o 15 o 



There are several other instances to be found in Mr. Ragg's tables. 



Domesday students cannot speak so confidently about the plough- 

 lands in the record as they can about its ' hides.' These, it will be found, 

 often approximate or even coincide with the hides in number. Yet 

 they are at times far fewer or far more numerous, while at Wing, 

 assessed at only five hides, there was land for no fewer than forty ploughs. 

 A good illustration of these variations is afforded by the Earl of Chester's 

 lands. On two of his manors the number of the ploughlands was 

 exactly equal to that of the hides, but the two others, Mentmore and 

 Shenley, though each of them possessing ten ploughlands, were respec- 

 tively assessed at eighteen and at two hides. Although the frequent 

 coincidence of hides and ploughlands in number might suggest a rough 

 or a conventional estimate, the record of the ploughs that actually were 

 or ' could be ' employed on the manor proves that we are dealing with 

 real areas of arable land. Great obscurity, however, still surrounds the 

 subject. 



Immediately after the schedule of holders of lands in the county, 

 Domesday deals with the king's manors, here only seven in number. 

 Three at least of these had been King Edward's own, Aylesbury, Wend- 

 over, and Brill, while three others are entered as having been held by 

 Harold. Buckingham itself, though entered separately as being the 

 county town, was also (with Bourton) a royal manor with ploughlands, 

 mill, and meadow. The chief feature of interest about these royal 

 manors is the revenue the king derived from them. Domesday usually 

 records so great an increase in that revenue since King Edward's days as 

 to suggest that either the Normans had proved grossly extortionate, or 

 the old rents before the Conquest had remained unduly low. The latter 

 is by no means an improbable view, for there is evidence in other 

 counties of old conventional rents being received from royal manors 

 irrespective of their value. 



In any case the rise was sharp. Aylesbury and Wendover had 

 formerly ' rendered ' 25 each ' by tale ' yearly ; from Aylesbury was now 



208 



