46 THE DOMESDAY INQUEST 



modern civil parish embraces a large number of hamlets 

 of about the same size, one of which contains the church 

 and gives its name to the collection. The nucleated vill is 

 apparently the typical settlement of the English invaders. 

 All the houses are collected round the church, and the fields 

 stretch out from the village on all sides. The lone farms that 

 exist are settlements of a much later date. To illustrate the 

 difference between these two types of vills, he prints two 

 portions of the Ordnance Survey. The country round Walling- 

 ford, on the borders of Berks and Oxfordshire, is taken as 

 an example of a land of villages ; and a district on the borders 

 of Devon and Somerset is the example of a land of hamlets. 1 

 But even in the counties which are especially Saxon are to 

 be found districts of hamlets. In the belt of fat corn-land 

 between the South Downs and the sea in West Sussex, almost 

 every civil parish contains a number of hamlets, some of which 

 can be traced in the pre-Conquest charters. 



The term " vill " is used in Domesday Book to imply a tract 

 of territory with a name of its own. The Bishop of London 

 had an estate at Stepney of 32 hides ; Hugh de Berners held 

 5 J hides of the bishop " in the same vill ; " the wife of Brian 

 held 5 hides of the bishop " in the same vill ; " and there were 

 other tenants who held land of the bishop " in the same vill." 

 Here, then, is an extensive vill assessed at 50 hides, belonging 

 to the Bishop of London, who retained a large part in his 

 own hands, and granted the remainder to nine under-tenants. 2 

 Frequently, however, we find that a vill was a manor. In 

 other words, that the same property could be called both a 

 vill and a manor. This is the case when one person only is 

 returned as the tenant of a particular area having a name of 

 its own ; for instance, out of 220 named vills in the Oxford- 

 shire Domesday, 1 39 were in the sole and undivided possession 

 of single proprietors, and in these cases the vill and the manor 

 were coterminous. On the other hand, there were many 



1 D. B. andB., 15. 2 D. B., I. 127 a 2. 



