A HISTORY OF ESSEX 



extreme subdivision, the geld ' hides ' and ' acres ' are a most misleading 

 guide. The valuable manor of Gestingthorpe, for instance (p. 564 below), 

 in which Otto the goldsmith had succeeded Earl ./Elfgar, was assessed 

 at only half a hide. 1 The recorded values afford a surer guide to follow. 

 Speaking guardedly and very generally, we form the impression from the 

 Essex survey that the larger holders were steadily acquiring, even before 

 the Conquest, rights over the smaller ones, even if ' only such as com- 

 mendation gave.' In the tumult and confusion of the Conquest period 

 some of the smaller holders, we find, suffered downright aggression at 

 the hands of their own countrymen ; but it was naturally by the new- 

 comers that their lands were chiefly absorbed. This absorption was 

 effected partly by actual grant from the Crown, a grant which had to be 

 completed by formal livery of seisin. There are several allusions in the 

 Essex survey to the absence of such livery in the case of contested titles. 

 The other way in which it was effected was simple lawless encroach- 

 ment, the usual form of such encroachment being the extension of a 

 Norman's lordship at the cost of an English free man whose lands adjoined 

 it. It is very difficult to estimate the extent of such encroachment in 

 the county, because the invasio or occupatlo is sometimes recorded under 

 a fief and is sometimes found among the long list of invasiones super regem 

 at the close of the county survey. This lawless aggression was at times 

 the subject of complaint from one Norman against another, at times 

 effected at the cost of Englishmen, and often at that of the king. His 

 own manors, with which the Survey opens, teem with notices of such 

 encroachment ; but it must be remembered that the seizure, without 

 authority from him, of the land of a ' free man ' would be treated as 

 a wrong done to himself, insomuch as it diminished the total spoils 

 available for distribution. 



We are apt to forget that twenty years had elapsed between the 

 date of William's victory and that of the great Survey. The disputes 

 as to title recorded in Domesday Book must have been greatly increased 

 by this lapse of time ; for, besides the ' aggressions ' of English prede- 

 cessors, there were those also of aliens who had gained and lost their 

 lands between the two dates. The lands of Count Eustace had been 

 swollen by the acts of his predecessor Ingelric, 8 and the fief of ' Eudo 

 dapifer' by those of Lisois de Moustiers; 8 Walter the deacon had 

 succeeded to the lands of his brother Thierri, and John the son of 

 Waleram to those of his father ; and at Wormingford and Stanway 

 Roger of Poitou had benefited by the aggressions of a predecessor 

 with the strange Provenal name of Reimund Girald. 4 



It has always appeared to me that Mr. Freeman, in avowed re- 

 action from Thierry, was disposed to underestimate the wholesale 



1 There were, at Gestingthorpe, two manors, each apparently of six ploughlands and each assessed 

 at half a hide (fos. 39, 98). The parish now contains 2,700 acres, and the assessment of the whole at one 

 hide is worth noting for its lowness. It is evidently not accounted for by Earl ^Elfgar's tenure of one of 

 the two manors. The low assessments of High Easter, of Tiltey, and of Stambourne and Toppesfield may 

 be compared. 8 See pp. 463-8 below. 



8 Compare Inj. Com. Cant. pp. 1923. * See my notes on him in The Ancestor, i. 122. 



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