THE DOMESDAY SURVEY 



borough, to which was appurtenant ' a saltpan in (Droit)wich, rendering 

 three shillings.' Urse was the great man at Droitwich, and appears to 

 have assigned salt from it to some of his manors. Therefore when we 

 read of Studley, the seat of William Fitz Corbucion, that it included 

 a saltpan rendering nineteen (horse) loads of salt, 1 we have to remember 

 that William also had interests at Droitwich in the salt, and that, conse- 

 quently, this saltpan was probably there, not at Studley. This is likely 

 to have been the case also with the saltpan entered under Haselor, a 

 manor of Nicholas, and with the salt rendered by Wasperton mill. The 

 other mention of salt is at Brailes, the render from which manor in- 

 cluded twenty (horse) loads. 



The problem of the Domesday Hundreds of Warwickshire is 

 closely connected with questions of local identification. Where, as here, 

 there are several places bearing the same name Compton, for instance 

 one is often dependent on the Hundredal headings for distinguishing 

 one from the other. But in Warwickshire these headings are at times 

 omitted by the scribe ; the Hundreds themselves, moreover, were subse- 

 quently re-arranged ; and, lastly, the sequence, of Hundreds in the text 

 appears to me irregular. 



To take the last of these points first, it must always be remem- 

 bered that we see in Domesday only a compilation, made from original 

 returns in the form of Hundred Rolls. The compiler is supposed to 

 have gone through these rolls for each fief in turn, picking out those 

 manors which belonged to its tenant-in-chief, so as to bring them to- 

 gether. For Warwickshire he first picked out the manors retained ' in 

 demesne,' and then went through the rolls again to collect those in 

 which the ' baron ' had enfeoffed his under-tenants. This is well seen 

 on the fiefs of the Count of Meulan, of Turchil of Warwick, and of 

 Hugh de Grentmesnil, where a space is left in the manuscript between 

 the two classes. Oddly enough, on the fief of William Fitz Corbucion 

 he reversed his normal order and placed the demesne manors last. 



If this process had been carried out, as in some counties, with 

 regularity, the Hundreds would follow in a strict sequence which 

 would help us to identify a manor where the heading was omitted. 

 But a careful analysis of the fiefs shows that the sequence cannot be 

 relied on. Eight fiefs, it is true, show us the Hundred of ' Fernecumbe ' 

 following immediately on that of ' Tremelau,' while ' Meretone ' pre- 

 cedes ' Stanlei ' in six cases ; but ' Bomelau ' appears twice before and 

 once after ' Meretone '; 'Stanlei' once after and once before ' Hones- 

 berie,' and ' Patelau ' once before and once after ' Berricestone.' ' 



For a study of the Domesday Hundreds of the county we are in- 

 debted to Mr. Benjamin Walker, 3 who has shown that they were ten in 

 number. It is one of our difficulties in Warwickshire that these have 



1 See note 2 previous page. 



J On the subinfeuded portion of Robert de Stafford's fief the Hundreds appear in this order : 

 Patelau, Stanlei, Bedricestone, Fernecumbe, Berricestone, Patelau. 



' See 'The Hundreds of Warwickshire at the time of the Domesday Survey,' with map, in the 

 Antiquary, xxxix. 146-51, 179-84. 



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