A HISTORY OF ESSEX 



court, and even of the Domesday commissioners themselves at work on the 

 king's behalf. 



Dealing first with the evidence of Domesday on the changes wrought 

 by the Conquest in the distribution of land, we turn to the manors held 

 by King William himself, and are struck at once by the salient fact that 

 in Essex not a single manor had been held by Edward the Confessor. 

 The surveys of Cambridgeshire and Suffolk begin, as was usually the case, 

 with the valuable manors in which King William had succeeded his 

 predecessor on the throne. Why did Essex in this respect differ from 

 other counties ? Could it have contained no manors that were ' ancient 

 demesne ' of the Crown ? In seeking an answer to this question we may 

 find assistance perhaps in the adjoining county of Hertford. There also, 

 of the manors held by the king himself, not one is entered as having been 

 held by Edward. I have elsewhere suggested that this may be explained, 

 at least in the case of Hitchin, by far the greatest of them all, by the fact 

 that Harold had obtained possession of the Crown's ' ancient demesne.' 1 

 There is strong reason, I think, to believe that in Essex also this had 

 happened. Another solution indeed is suggested by Professor Maitland, 

 although he seems not to have observed, or at least not have addressed 

 himself to the special case of Essex. Writing on the king's manors in 

 Domesday Book and Beyond (pp. 1 668), he speaks of ' comital manors ' : 



King William is much richer than King Edward was. The Conqueror has been 

 chary in appointing earls, and consequently he has in his hand, not only the royal 

 manors, but also a great many comital manors. . . . One of the best marked features 

 of Domesday Book, a feature displayed on page after page, the enormous wealth of 

 the house of Godwin, seems only applicable by the supposition that the earlships and 

 the older ealdormanships had carried with them a title to the enjoyment of wide lands. 

 ... A great deal of simple rapacity is laid to the charge of Harold by jurors whose 

 testimony is not to be lightly rejected ; but the greater part of the land ascribed to 

 Godwin, his widow and his sons, seems to consist of comitales villa. 



That the vast estates of Harold in Essex were partly, at least, 

 Crown lands we have incidental hints. Domesday itself, surveying the 

 great lordship of Writtle, tells us first that Harold had held it, and then 

 mentions that a hide ' in Writtle ' held by the Bishop of Hereford had 

 belonged to ' the king's fee ' (in feudo regis] . This entry is repeated 

 later under the name of the Bishop of Hereford, with the difference only 

 that the hide in question is said to have belonged to ' Harold's fee ' 

 (feudo Haroldi)? This surely suggests that Harold's fee had been the 

 king's. But I base my conclusion rather on the peculiar character of 

 the manors found in Harold's hands. Writtle itself had rendered ' x 

 noctes de firma,' and Brightlingsea, Lawford and Newport ' 2 nights ' 

 each. This archaic system of providing ' feorm ' for the household 

 was normally characteristic of ' ancient demesne ' of the Crown, 3 and 

 the only other Essex manor on which it was found was that which Earl 

 ./Elfgar had held at Baddow. 



With these introductory remarks we turn to Harold's lands, and 



1 Victoria History of Hertfordshire, i. 278. z See pp. 434, 460. 



8 Compare, for instance, Eyton's Key to Domesday : Dorset Survey, p. 80. 



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