THE DOMESDAY SURVEY 



was added to Sturmere, and on the other hand a portion of Sturmere 

 has now been transferred to Kedington. 1 Over 600 acres of Haverhill 

 and over 700 of Kedington are now reckoned as in Essex. On this 

 complication however Domesday appears to be silent. 



Even the Thames to the south, like the Stour to the north of the 

 county, does not always form an exact boundary. There belongs to Kent 

 a portion of Woolwich which lies on the Essex bank of the river, and 

 Domesday reckons as in Essex a Gravesend (' Gravesanda ') of small 

 extent, which has not been identified. 



Before leaving the Hundreds and their boundaries, one may note 

 that the latter, in the east of the county, coincide with the parish boun- 

 daries, and that the small geographically compact Hundreds of Thur- 

 stable and Winstree are suggestive of ancient origin. All the coast 

 Hundreds are separated by estuaries or creeks, and the quasi-peninsular 

 character of Tendring and Dengie has given them a certain individuality 

 which makes their names still familiar. The ' Lexden and Winstree 

 Board of Guardians and rural district council ' preserves the names of 

 two others which figure in Domesday Book. Dengie and Rochford, for 

 some reason, have been locally known as 'The Hundreds.' Broadly 

 speaking, the Hundreds of Essex resemble those of Suffolk ' rather than 

 the small ones of Sussex, to which, for racial reasons, one might have 

 expected them to approximate. This would seem to confirm the view 

 that they are mainly of a more recent date than the original settlement. 



In Domesday Book the Hundred assumes extreme importance, for 

 the whole country was surveyed, as it was taxed, by Hundreds, that is 

 to say, Domesday Book was compiled from original returns, each of 

 which contained the entries, vill by vill, for a single Hundred on the 

 authority of the ' Hundred ' itself, that is, of its sworn representatives. 

 It is possible, in the Essex portion of the Survey, to detect the order in 

 which the returns were arranged for the purpose of compilation. There 

 is no question, in my opinion, that this arrangement began with the 

 Hundred of Barstable and ended with that of Thurstable. The order 

 of the intervening Hundreds is doubtful here and there, but after analysing 

 the fourteen principal fiefs in the county, it may safely be given thus . 

 Barstable, Witham, Harlow, Waltham, Becontree, Dunmow, Dengie (i), 

 Winstree, Uttlesford (i), Clavering, Hinckford, Dengie (2), Lexden, 

 Ongar, Chafford, Chelmsford, Maldon, Tendring, Uttlesford (2), Fresh- 

 well, Rochford, Thurstable. The two points to observe here are that 

 the Hundreds of Dengie 3 and of Uttlesford appear to come twice over,* 



Kelly. 



8 Essex has 21, counting Colchester and Maldon (but not Havering) ; Suffolk, with its slightly 

 smaller area, 23, counting Ipswich, or 24 counting Bosmere and Claydon as two (as in Domesday). 



* Dengie follows both Dunmow and Hinckford on the Peverel and Boulogne fiefs, Dunmow and 

 Uttlesford (i) on the king's fief, Dunmow and Clavering on the Mandeville fief, Rochford and Clavering 

 on Suain's fief, and Beventrce and Hinckford on the Montfort fief ; on the Baynard fief it precedes 

 Dunmow and also follows Hinckford. Uttlesford follows both Dengie (i) and Tendring on the king's 

 fief, and both Winstree and Tendring on the Boulogne and on the Gernon fief. 



4 Uttlesford was sometimes reckoned as two Hundreds in later days (p. 407 above), but this 

 may be only a coincidence. 



I 409 52 



