1 78 THE DOMESDAY INQUEST 



burgesses mentioned in connection with the villages resided 

 in the boroughs, but paid dues to their native villages, and 

 that their residence in the boroughs was owing to their 

 liability for the repair of the walls. Even in the eleventh 

 century London must have had immigrants from every 

 county in England ; and yet Domesday Book records London 

 burgesses belonging to manors in Surrey, Middlesex, and 

 Essex only. Why is there no mention of the immigrants 

 from Sussex, Oxfordshire, and Gloucestershire ? The only 

 possible reason can be that the immigrants from these latter 

 counties had come to London to make their fortune in trade, 

 and had severed their connection with their native villages ; 

 and that the burgesses belonging to the specified manors in 

 Surrey, Middlesex, and Essex were obliged for some reason 

 or other to live in London ; and I suggest that the reason 

 for their obligation to live in London was their obligation to 

 repair the walls. 



6. THE CASTLES 



Closely connected with the burgesses and the boroughs 

 were the castles, of which Domesday Book records fifty. 

 They have all been discussed by Mrs. Armytage, in the 

 English Historical Review for 1904, and she has come to the 

 conclusion that the mention of a castle in Domesday Book 

 implies nothing more than a mound or motte, occasionally 

 natural but usually artificial, surrounded by a ditch and 

 surmounted by a wooden building, with a bailey or base 

 court attached thereto, which in its turn was surrounded by 

 a ditch. 1 Such, she thinks, was the building mentioned as 



1 There is no room here for archaeological discussion of the various points 

 raised by Mrs. Armytage, but it is right to mention that her wholesale conclusions 

 do not commend themselves to all antiquarians. It is suggested that it would be 

 very strange if the military architecture of the Domesday period had not advanced 

 beyond a mound, a ditch, and a wooden building, when stone churches abounded 

 on all sides. There are substantial remains yet extant of fully two hundred 

 pre-Conquest churches. 



