DOMESDAY SURVEY 



sheriff, who is charged with making use of half a hide, to give it as pay- 

 ment to the woman who taught his daughter embroidery, 1 though per- 

 haps only for the term of his shrievalty. In Berkshire, of which also 

 he was sheriff, there is much fuller testimony against him, 2 and Henry 

 de Ferrers, who obtained his lands, is alleged to hold among them parcels 

 of Crown demesne.* His history, however, belongs more especially to 

 that county. In Hertfordshire Ilbert, a Norman sheriff, seems to be 

 charged with such an alienation of land. 4 



To the tenure by Ralf Taillebois of the office of sheriff we have 

 probably obscure allusions in the exchange of half Risborough for 

 Ellesborough ' contra Radulfum Talgebosch,' 8 and in his erection of a 

 mill on Bertram de Verdon's land at Farnham Royal. 



Although Buckingham occupies in the Survey the remarkable and 

 separate position to which Professor Maitland has drawn attention as 

 distinctive of county towns, its quasi-rural character is strongly marked. 

 Indeed, it is surveyed in the same way as the purely rural manors of the 

 king, save that, in the place of the usual villeins, twenty-six ' burgesses ' 

 precede the bordars and the serfs, and that its church is entered as that 

 of the ' borough.' But the list of burgesses and their lords which 

 follows this survey is similar to that which meets us in other capitals 

 of shires. As the total of these burgesses is twenty-seven one of 

 whom had passed to the king with Earl Aubrey's land we are 

 left in doubt as to whether or not they represent the above ' twenty-six 

 burgesses.' Probably, however, the latter dwelt on the king's land and 

 should, therefore, be reckoned separately. With its usual disregard for 

 uniformity Domesday sometimes gives us the value of these burghal 

 holdings under the town itself, and sometimes under the manors to 

 which they were deemed appurtenant. The former course is adopted 

 here, and the double payments recorded should be carefully observed. 

 From twenty-three of the burgesses the king received, in unequal 

 amounts, sixty-six pence, while twenty-six were worth to their lords 

 thirty-one shillings in all. But the amounts varied, in proportion doubt- 

 less with the value of their houses, from the twenty-six pence received 

 by Earl Hugh and the Bishop of Coutances to the sevenpence which was 

 all that a burgess paid to Maino the Breton or Hugh de Bolbec. 



Apart from the houses in the county town held by the lords of 

 Buckinghamshire manors, it is noteworthy that at Oxford there was one 

 house, worth thirty pence, belonging to (Princes) Risborough, and 

 two, worth only four pence, that belonged to Twyford. 8 Both these 

 manors were near the Oxfordshire border, but the only relative entry in 

 their own county is the mention of a burgess at Oxford, appurtenant 



1 ' habuit ipsa dimidiam hidam quam Godricus vicecomes ei concessit, quamdiu vicecomes esset, 

 ut ilia doceret filiam ejus Aurifrisium operari.' 



2 ' dimidia hida fuit de firma regis, sed tempore Godrici vicecomitis fuit foris missa. Hoc attes- 

 tatur tota scira' (fo. 57b). 



3 Ibid, passim, and fo. 6ob. : ' accepit ipse Godricus de firma regis unam virgatam terra.' 

 'Quam terram dederat Ilbertus cuidam suo militi dum esset vicecomes' (fo. 133). 



See p. 209 above. "Domesday Book, fo. 154. 



221 



