94 THE DOMESDAY INQUEST 



served the Saint and the Abbot and the brethren ; " besides 

 these, there were thirteen tenants of the reeves land who had 

 houses in the same vill, with five.bordars under them, and 

 thirty-four knights, French and English, with twenty-two 

 bordars under them. In all there were 342 houses, and yet 

 St. Edmund's Bury is not styled a borough. 



After the Church property had been entered in Domesday 

 Book, the scribes proceeded to register the estates of the lay 

 landowners according to their rank and wealth, and the earls 

 naturally took the first place. But here we must notice a great 

 change produced by the Conquest. Edward's earls divided 

 the country between them, and rivalled the King in power. 

 William appointed earls only for those parts of the kingdom 

 which were the most liable to invasion. 



Mr. Freeman has devoted many pages to a discussion of 

 the earldoms under Edward the Confessor, and has printed two 

 maps showing their extent in the years 1045 and 1065 respec- 

 tively. 1 We are not concerned with their history ; but to form 

 some idea of the state of England on the day that King 

 Edward was " quick and dead," the latter map must be looked 

 at. It shows that in 1065 the whole country was divided 

 between six earls, as follows : 



1. Morcar, who had jurisdiction over the whole of England 

 north of the Ouse and Ribble the old Northumbria. 



2. Edwin, who was Earl of Mercia, comprising the shires 

 of Chester, Salop., Stafford, Worcester, Warwick, Leicester, 

 Derby, Notts., and Lincoln. 



3. Waltheof, Earl of Northampton and Huntingdon. 



4. Gurth, Earl of Oxfordshire, 2 Bedfordshire, Cambridge, 

 Norfolk, and Suffolk. 



1 Norman Conquest^ II. App. G. 



2 In spite of the writs of the Confessor addressed to Gurth as Earl of Oxford- 

 shire, there can be no doubt that the county was at one time part of the Mercian 

 earldom : for Domesday Book distinctly states that " T. R. E. the city of Oxford 

 rendered 20 to the King and 10 to Earl Alfgar," Earl of Mercia, till his death 

 in 1062 (D. B., I. 154 a i), thus showing that the third penny of the city was 

 once paid to the Earl of Mercia. 



