DOMESDAY SURVEY 



The King's demesne, p. 285. Assessment of the county, p. 286. Church lands,p. 288. Barons' 

 lands,p. 288. The Serjeants and the English thegns,p. 291. Former landowners, p. 293. 

 The foreign knights, p. 296. Spoliation of abbeys, p. 298. Churches and priests,p. 299. 

 Parishes and manors, p. 301. Agriculture and mills, p. 302. Fisheries, p. 304. Dairy 

 farming and meadows, p. 305. Swine and the woodlands, p. 308. The towns, p. 310. 

 Legal antiquities and customs, p. 314. The county borders, p. 318. 



I 



the interest and importance of the Berkshire portion of the 

 Conqueror's great survey Mr. Freeman bore striking 

 witness when he selected it for special treatment as typifying 

 the effect of the Conquest on this country in practice. 1 He 

 analysed its evidence so fully that in dealing with the subject one is 

 forced to traverse, to some extent, his footsteps. There was, however, 

 an external reason for this choice of Berkshire, namely the existence of 

 that chronicle of the local Abbey of Abingdon, which helps us to 

 illustrate the Domesday text, and which is specially rich in that 

 personal detail that Mr. Freeman valued most of all. 3 But the interest 

 of the survey is by no means confined to those features which to him 

 proved the most attractive ; the long account of the borough of 

 Wallingford and the very important entry on the local institutions of 

 Berkshire would alone afford material for lengthy disquisition. 



The great extent of the Conqueror's own manors in the county 

 and the fact that it contained at Windsor his new fortified residence 

 already entitled it to claim the epithet of ' royal.' Six columns of 

 Domesday Book are devoted to a survey of the lands which William 

 held in his own hands, the royal demesne having evidently been, even 

 before the Conquest, very extensive in the county. King Edward him- 

 self was the predecessor in some eighteen instances of his Norman 

 successor, and his relict, Queen Edith, in five others. The old Crown 

 manors, moreover, were mostly large and important ; Cookham, Lam- 

 bourn, and Old Windsor were each assessed at twenty hides ; Cholsey 

 and Sutton Courtenay at more than twenty each ; Shrivenham at 

 forty-six, and Reading at forty-three, in addition to which William 

 held the borough of Reading in demesne. Nor was assessment always 

 an indication of their value; Blewberry and Wantage, at the time of 



* Norman Conquest (1871), iv. 32-47, 728-736. 



2 ' This district is one of those in which the Commissioners employed on William's Survey have been 

 most bountiful in local and personal notices, while in some parts of England they give us little beyond 

 dry lists of names. We are also able to draw a good deal of help from the detailed history ... of Saint 

 Mary of Abingdon. By these means we are able to call up a personal image of several men in the days 

 of Edward, Harold and William of some of whom we have heard already ' (Ibid. p. 32). 



285 



