DOMESDAY SURVEY 



and the Bridport mint is first recorded in the time of Aethelred II.'° Although Domes- 

 day says only that the mints were there T.R.E. and does not say what the position was 

 in 1086, coins from all four boroughs were struck in the reigns of William I and 

 William II." 



It seems unlikely that at this date these little boroughs had courts of their own, but 

 there is a possibility that Dorchester did have its own court. There was a hundred of 

 Dorchester as well as a borough and a vill, and it seems quite likely that the hundred 

 court met in the borough of Dorchester. The boroughs seem to have been extra- 

 hundredal themselves, like the king's manors to which they were attached, and this 

 fact probably contributed to the development of separate courts. Professor Tait 

 observed that the hundred of Dorchester was later known as the hundred of St. George, 

 to whom the parish church of Fordington was dedicated, Fordington being a suburb of 

 Dorchester. He considered it possible that the hundred of Dorchester had split into two, 

 one half covering the borough and the other half covering the geldable portion. It is 

 possible that this division had taken place some time previously, and that consequently 

 the borough of Dorchester had its own jurisdiction perhaps even before the Conquest. '^ 



In all four boroughs a considerable number of houses had been destroyed after the 

 Conquest. In Dorchester there were 172 houses T.R.E. ; in 1086 there were 88 houses 

 standing and 100 destroyed. In Wareham there were 143 houses T.R.E.; in 1086 the 

 king had 70 houses standing and 73 destroyed, the abbey of St. Wandrille had 45 houses 

 standing and 17 destroyed, and the other barons had 20 houses standing and 

 60 destroyed. In Shaftesbury T.R.E. the Abbess of Shaftesbury had 153 houses 

 and the king had 104 houses; in 1086 the abbess had 11 1 houses standing and 

 43 destroyed and the king had 66 houses standing and 18 destroyed. In Bridport T.R.E. 

 there were 120 houses. In 1086, according to the Exchequer text, there were 100 houses 

 and 20 sunt ita destitute quod qui in eis manent geldum solvere non valent. The Exon. text 

 implies that 20 houses must have been destroyed as well, by showing that the 20 

 impoverished houses were numbered among the 100 houses still standing: xx ex his c 

 domibus ita sunt adnichilate quod homines qui intus manent non habent unde reddent 

 nullmn^^ geldum. There is no apparent reason for this destruction. The Chronicle does 

 not record any disturbance in the area which could have led to such systematic wasting. 

 Eyton's suggestion that it was caused by 'internal conflicts between the Anglican and 

 Norman burgesses' may be the correct one,''* but in view of his other depredations, '•■> it is 

 possible that the boroughs came into conflict with Hugh fitz Grip. In each account the 

 devastation is said to have taken place a tempore Hugonis vicecomitis usque nunc. 



II 



King William had received in Dorset four groups of lands, the lands of King 

 Edward, the lands of Earl Harold, the lands of Queen Maud, which had reverted to her 

 husband on her death, and two manors which had belonged to Countess Goda, King 

 Edward's sister. The lands of King Edward consisted of Portland and five large 

 groups of manors. Portland (nos. i and vi) was not assessed in hides, and there is a 

 blank space in the Exchequer entry where one would expect to find the number of 

 teamlands. It rendered ^^65 blanched {Ixv libras albas) a year, and did not pay geld. The 

 five groups of manors consisted of Burton Bradstock, Bere Regis, Colesberie or Coles- 

 breia, Shipton Gorge, Bradpole, and Chideock (nos. 2 and x); Wimborne Minster, 

 Shapwick, Crichel, and Opewinburne or Obpe Winborna (nos. 3 and xi); Dorchester, 



'° Ibid. 70. " ni/Z/wm is underlined in the Exon. text as if for erasure. 



" Ibid. 83-85. '■' Eyton, Key to Domesday: Dorset, 72. 



'2 J. Tait, Medieval Eng. Boro. 52-53. " See pp. 23, 46. 



27 



