98 THE DOMESDAY INQUEST 



Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, and Robert, Count of Mortain, 

 received the largest proportionate share of the lands of the 

 conquered English. Each had estates in twenty counties, and, 

 as we have seen, the former became Earl of Kent, and the 

 latter Earl of Cornwall ; but the Earl of Kent was engaged 

 in a conspiracy in 1082, and was thereupon arrested, and his 

 lands were taken into the King's hands. Nevertheless, except 

 in Sussex, Berks, and Gloucester, no notice is taken of this 

 forfeiture, and his lands are all entered under the rubric 

 " Land of the Bishop of Bayeux." Their united possessions 

 amounted to about one-sixth of the cultivated land, but the 

 share of the count was slightly larger than that of the bishop. 1 

 Mr. Pearson estimates the value of the estates of the Bishop 

 of Bayeux at 3 384, and those of the Count of Mortain to 

 have been worth nearly 2000? 



For the same reason that William suppressed the larger 

 earldoms of his predecessor, so he was most careful that none 

 of his subjects should possess a compact block of territory in 

 which he could raise forces for a possible rebellion, and for 

 this reason the lands he gave to his brothers did not lie in 

 a compact block, but were scattered over a score of counties, 

 so that if either wished to rebel he would have to elude the 

 watchfulness of a score of sheriffs. Even in the counties in 

 which they were earls, less than one-half of the cultivated land 

 belonged to them. Even where one man received a con- 

 siderable share of a single county, his estates did not lie in 

 a compact block. Two-fifths of Oxfordshire belonged to the 

 Bishop of Bayeux, Robert of Ouilly, Roger of Ivry, and Miles 

 Crispin ; but their estates were well intermixed, so that any 

 rebellion in the county must have been supported by all four 

 to have had the slightest chance of success. The lands of the 

 Count of Mortain, in Bucks, in 1086, employed one hundred 

 teams ; but these estates lay in fourteen out of the eighteen 

 hundreds into which the county was divided. 



1 See Table A. 2 Hist. Eng., i. 384. 



