DOMESDAY SURVEY 



few Englishwomen who had held land in the county is of interest. 

 ' ./Eldeva,' a free woman, held of the King ' in almoin ' the estate in the 

 Hendreds she had held before the Conquest, and so did Edith and 

 'Eldit,' whose estates were very small. The two first had held their 

 lands uncommended to any lord, and there is something almost con- 

 temptuous in their holding it now as of the King's alms. 



The entry relating to Shippon * is of interest in several ways. 

 Like Drayton to the south of Abingdon, Shippon, to its north, had been 

 held formerly by ' Ednod,' whom Domesday further distinguishes, 

 under Shippon, as Eadnoth the Staller. At both places his lands had 

 been obtained by Earl Hugh of Chester. Devoting to Eadnoth a 

 special Appendix, 8 Mr. Freeman endeavoured to trace him in Domes- 

 day, but failed to detect the clue afforded by the bestowal of his lands 

 on Earl Hugh, who was holding in 1086 lands which had belonged to 

 Ednod, Alnod, or Elnod, in Wilts, Gloucestershire, Somerset, Dorset, 

 and Devon, as well as in this county. We thus identify Eadnoth the 

 Staller positively with the ' Ednod dapifer ' of Domesday in Wilts and 

 the ' Eadnotus constabulus ' of the chronicle of Abingdon. 8 



According to Domesday, Earl Hugh, retaining Drayton for him- 

 self, ' gave ' Shippon which, it is added, ' non fuit in abbatia ' in 

 Edward's time, to the abbot of Abingdon, who then mortgaged it. 

 But the abbey's chronicle places a different complexion on the matter. 

 When Earl Hugh, it tells us, had learnt that Shippon belonged rightly 

 to the abbey, he offered it in the abbey church, placing with his hand, 

 after the manner of the time, a knife on the altar, his nephews Engenulf 

 (de Laigle) and William (Meschin) * being present. But he had pre- 

 viously bargained that he was to receive 30 in cash and to obtain the 

 benefits of confraternity for himself, his wife, and his parents ! Such 

 was not unfrequently the real character of these ' gifts.' The special 

 difficulty, however, is that the chronicle of the house assigns this trans- 

 action to 31 March 1090, although Domesday refers to it as past in 

 1086 and even suggests that the land has been mortgaged in order that 

 the abbot might raise the 30 for the earl. The difficulty of recon- 

 ciling the dates is great. A subsidiary contradiction is found in 

 Domesday's apparent denial of the fact that Shippon had belonged to 

 the Abbey under Edward, but from what it tells us, under Dorset, 

 about Eadnoth and Harold, we may suspect that Eadnoth had been 

 assisted by the latter to encroach on the rights of the abbey. 



Of the other holders of lands under Edward in the county none 

 calls for special mention, but Mr. Freeman, with some justice, observed 

 that ' an incidental expression in the local history shows that for a man 

 to have been a thegn of Berkshire implied almost as a matter of course, 

 that he had died at Senlac.' 5 



1 In St. Helen's, Abingdon. 2 Norman Conquest, vol. iv. 



3 ' quidam ipsius \i.e. Eadvvardi regis] constabulus, nomine Eadnotus.' Op. cit. ii. 19. 



4 His sisters' sons. 



6 The reference is to the Abingdon Chronicle, which speaks of the Abbey's tenants ' quos Tahinos 

 dicnnt, et in bello Hastingis occubuerant ' (ii. 3). 



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