A HISTORY OF BUCKINGHAMSHIRE 



day Survey of Worcestershire/ His also was the church of Bucking- 

 ham, which held a good estate there, and to which Gawcott also was 

 appurtenant. On the Archbishop of Canterbury's manor of'Nedreham' 

 Gilbert the priest is mentioned as holding the church and tithe with a 

 large glebe assessed at 3 hides. A small glebe of half a virgate, lying 

 in Hardmead, is mentioned as belonging to the church of St. Firmin 

 of (North) Crawley. 



Of institutional and legal antiquities a few illustrations may be 

 noted. The distinct mention of castle guard in the case of Drayton 

 Parslow, whence two knights, we read, were due towards the ward of 

 Windsor, is probably unique in Domesday, though later evidence shows 

 us the baronies of Picquigny (' Pinkeny ') and Windsor in this county 

 charged with that service. 2 The development of subinfeudation is seen 

 at Crafton (in Wing) where Robert de Nouers held of the Bishop of 

 Lisieux, who held of the Bishop of Bayeux. At Gayhurst he held of 

 the former, who held sine medio of the Crown. The difficulties thus 

 created receive curious illustration in the case of * Bricstoch,' where 

 ' Turstin ' is entered as holding a hide under Walter Giffard. This 

 Turstin proves to have been Turstin Fitz Rou, under whose fief the 

 entry is repeated, the land being there said to be held by Rainald of 

 Turstin, who holds it of the king ; but this latter entry is deleted. It 

 enables us, however, to place side by side the versions in the two entries 

 with this interesting result : 



Hanc terram tenuit Alwen quasdam Hanc terram tenuit Aluene qua-darn 

 femina sub Siwardo et vendere potuit femina Siwardi et potuit dare cui voluit 

 (fo. 147). (fo. 151). 



Here again we are reminded of that singular passion for variation 

 which led the Domesday scribe to express by different formulas the text 

 he had before him. 



The same passion for variation is perhaps accountable for the fact 

 that in some Buckinghamshire entries we have extremely full details of 

 the previous holders of land, while in others a bald statement is deemed 

 sufficient. That the Domesday scribe did occasionally omit such de- 

 tails is shown by collating his text for Cambridgeshire with the full 

 returns from the Hundreds, of which we possess transcripts. At times 

 he preserved the gist of the details, while skilfully reducing their bulk ; 

 but at others he simply ignored them. At Wratworth, for instance, he 

 simply wrote : ' Hanc terram tenuerunt vi sochemanni et cui voluerunt 

 terram suam vendere potuerunt ' (fo. I93b) ; and at Whitwell, in one 

 case : ' Hanc terram iii sochemanni tenuerunt et cui voluerunt vendere 

 potuerunt' (fo. I93b) ; while in another, after writing 'Hanc terram 

 tenuerunt viii sochemanni,' he copied out in full the details concerning 

 them (fo. 198). We are justified, I think, by this evidence, in holding 

 that the strange variations presented in the Buckingham portion were 



1 V. C. H. 



' Wards debits castro de Windesores ' (Red Book of the Exchequer, p. 7 1 6). 



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