DOMESDAY SURVEY 



Godric or to the charge against Godric in the books at the Treasury. We 

 cannot, however, deny the Hkeness of this passage to that in a well-known 

 writ of William Rufus,^ which tells us of certain land in Winterton and 

 Burgh in Flegg, ' ista terra inbreviata fuit in meis brevibus ad opus Sancti 

 Benedicti que sunt in thesauro meo Wintonie.' As the land in question duly 

 appears in Domesday,* though not quite in the same form as in the writ, 

 we ought probably to refer both passages to the Rotuli Wintonie, from which 

 Domesday seems to have been compiled, much as the T'esta de Nevill was 

 drawn up at a later date ; though, on the whole, with more care than those 

 puzzling volumes. 



We may gather from Domesday Book that another question arose of 

 which we read nothing in the instructions quoted above, namely, how each 

 owner came by his tenement. In very many cases Domesday supplies us 

 with an answer, and it is likely that these facts are derived from the 

 comparison of the owner's statements with the verdicts of the hundreds. 

 In most cases the title to the property falls under one of three heads. Either 

 the owner has stepped (by inheritance or otherwise) into the shoes of one or 

 more pre-Conquest tenants, his antecessor or antecessores, or he has received the 

 estate by livery from the king {liberatio), or he has exchanged other land 

 in England against what he holds in Norfolk [escangium). The necessity 

 for obtaining the king's permission — which had presumably to be purchased — 

 for any transfer of land is, here as elsewhere, illustrated. A freeman, for 

 instance, had forfeited his land, and a monk of St. Benet of Holme had given 

 the king's reeves half a mark of gold to discharge the forfeiture, thus acquiring 

 the land for the abbey. But Domesday notes that this was done ' absque 

 licentia regis.' On the other hand we read, a few lines further on, that when 

 Ralf the Staller gave some land to the abbey it was ' concessione regis. ' ' 

 Wihenoc the Breton, however, the former holder of a fief, had added 

 thereto the land of his English wife without receiving it as a gift from 

 the king, Domesday, with a solitary touch of romance, recording that 

 Wihenoc had loved and married her,* which accounted for her land 

 being found in the possession of his successor Rainald.' A few cases of 

 actual purchase are recorded. Five sokemen of Saham Toney holding 

 25 acres in Breckles were sold by the reeve of Saham to Earl Ralf by 

 livery of a bit [per unum frenum), and thus became appurtenant to Great 

 Ellingham." But in most cases the lawful acquisition of property took place 

 in one of the three ways described. The unlawful acquisition of property 

 (invasio) was, however, very common. Time after time we read that free- 

 men have been seized and joined to some manor ; that is, made to render 

 dues to which their lord had no claim. Besides the chapter of Invasiones at 

 the end of the account of Norfolk, scattered instances will be found right 

 through the text. In one case we hear how this change was effected. At 

 Foston, in Clackclose hundred (Fotestorp), there were six freemen com- 

 mended to the predecessor of Hermer de Ferrieres. He succeeded in making 

 them pay 5J. a year custom by driving their beasts off the pasture of the 



' Dugdale, Mo». iii, 86. ' Cf. Round, Feudal England, p. 215. 



' Dom. Bk. ff. 217^, 2 1 8. 



* ' Sed unus homo, Wihenoc, amavit quandam feminam in ilia terra et duxit earn, et postea tenuit 

 ille istam terram ad fedum W., sine dono regis et sine liberatione, et successoribus suis ' (f. 232). 



' This passage on the king's permission is by Mr. Round. ° Dom. Bk. f. I \ob. 



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