A HISTORY OF DORSET 



demesne. Most of the thegns holding land of the ecclesiastical tenants in 1086 are not 

 said to hold thegnland, and they were presumably just men with a thegn's wergild. At 

 Long Bredy (nos. 87 and 1) an English thegn {teignus anglicus) had a hide of land worth 

 ;^3. Six thegns held 8i hides at Sherborne (no. 37) and 2 thegns held 2\ hides at Stoke 

 Abbott (no. 45). The thegn who held part of Farnham (no. 352) of Shaftesbury Abbey 

 T.R.E. et tion poterat ab ea separari must have been commended to the church and may 

 have owed some service like that of the 3 thegns at Winsford. He is probably identical 

 with Alwin, who held the other part of Farnham (nos. 396 and cxxix) of the abbey 

 T.R.E. et tion poterat ab ea separari. Two free Englishmen {angli liberi) held 4 hides at 

 Handley (no. 125) of Shaftesbury Abbey. Three thegns held Bowood (no. 53) T.R.E., 

 which was held by the same number of knights in 1086, 2 of them, Osmar and Elfric, 

 apparently being English. 



There are a few references to churches in the Dorset survey. Bristuard the priest held 

 the churches of Bere Regis and Dorchester, with the tithes and i hide and 20 acres of 

 land (nos. 144 and xiii). The church of Gillingham was given to Shaftesbury Abbey in 

 exchange for a hide of land at Kingston (no. 134) in which Corfe Castle was to be 

 built.^* The church of Winfrith Newburgh, with a virgate of land, and the churches of 

 Puddletown, Chaldon, and Fleet, with i| hide of land, were held by Bollo the priest 

 (nos. 145 and xvi, 145a and xix). The churches of Burton Bradstock, Bridport, and 

 Whitchurch Canonicorum belonged to the abbey of St. Wandrille (nos. 123 and xviii) 

 and so did the church of Wareham (nos. 124 and xx). Another church in Wareham, pro- 

 bably the 11th-century church of St. Martin, ^^ and a chapel {ecclesiola) in Wimborne 

 Minster belonged to Horton Abbey (no. 117). To Wimborne belonged i^ hide and | 

 virgate in Hinton (no. 31) which Bishop Maurice held in 1086. It is evident that this is 

 not a comprehensive list of all the churches in Dorset in 1086. There must have been a 

 Saxon church at Sherborne, and this is confirmed by the survival of a Saxon doorway in 

 the west wall of the present building. ^o As their names suggest there must also have been 

 Saxon churches at Yetminster (no. 35), Charminster (no. 32), Beaminster (no. 46), which 

 belonged to the Bishop of Salisbury, Iwerne Minster (no. 131), belonging to Shaftes- 

 bury Abbey, and Sturminster (no. 232) belonging to Roger de Beaumont. Three priests are 

 recorded at Hinton (no. 31), two of whom still held land in 1086. One lived at Tarente. 

 There was a priest at Church Knowle (no. 235) and another at Bleneford (no. 455), 

 both of them being enumerated in conjunction with the peasants. Bristuard the priest 

 and Bollo the priest have already been mentioned and Godric the priest occurs among the 

 king's thegns. Walter the deacon (diaconus) held Cernel (no. 147) as an almsman. 



The most prosperous of the ecclesiastical landowners and after the king the wealthiest 

 man in Dorset was the Bishop of Salisbury. The ancient see of Sherborne, founded by 

 Ine in 705, and numbering Aldhelm and Asser among its bishops, had been restricted 

 to the county of Dorset since the reign of Edward the Elder.^' In 1058 Bishop 

 Herman united the sees of Sherborne and Ramsbury and between 1075 and 1078 

 the episcopal seat was transferred to Salisbury.^- This amalgamation of Sherborne 

 and Ramsbury explains the size of Bishop Osmund's fief, which consisted of 



perdit) this could be taken to mean the income from the rather large. 



manor, not any specific service: Dom. Bk. (Rec. Com.), i, '* castellum WARHAM in Domesday, but later 



f. 91. Abbotsbury Abbey was entitled to 6 a. of crops and evidence indicates that Corfe Castle is meant: see p. 83. 



3 church-scots de consuetudine from Friar Waddon (no. '"> G. Baldwin Brown, x'Jr^s i« i'ar/)' £';i^. (1925), ii. 484. 



143) and this in turn could be described as service. In '" Ibid. 477-8. 



Som. Brictric and Ulward held Buckland (Dom. Bk. (Rec. " F. M. Stenton, Anglo-Saxon Eng. 433. 



Com.), i, f. 98b) as king's thegns. They had held the land '^ W. Stubbs, Registrum Sacrum Anglicamim, 35. The 



of Bp. Peter et reddebant ei x solidos, but the king had had transfer was sanctioned by the Council of London in 1075 



nothing since the bp.'s death. It is possible that they paid and the removal took place between that date and Her- 



this sum instead of doing service, although the amount is man's death in 1078. 



40 



