A TYPICAL VILLAGE 261 



in a little difficulty. Some time before his death, Edward 

 the Confessor had given to Westminster Abbey "that cotlif 

 Islip, in which I was born, as Emma my mother gave it to 

 me ; " 5 and the Dean and Chapter of Westminster, or the 

 Ecclesiastical Commissioners as representing the Dean and 

 Chapter, are still lords of the manor and owners of most 

 of the land in the parish. But Domesday Book records that 

 its owners in 1066 were Godric and Alwin, who held it freely, 

 and therefore owed no service to any but the King. They 

 were dispossessed by the wife of Roger of Ivry, the daughter 

 of Wigot of Wallingford, who held Islip and Oddington 

 of the King in commendation. The Testa de Nevill re- 

 cords that the Abbey of Westminster held Islip by gift of 

 St. Edward, and in another place the same record states that 

 the abbot recovered it from William of Curci by assise before 

 the King. These riddles may perhaps be solved by some 

 future investigator, but at present it seems that the Domes- 

 day Commissioners erred when they stated that Godric and 

 Alwin held it freely ; possibly they were tenants of the abbey 

 for life or lives, and on their forfeiture the King, in ignorance 

 of the claims of the abbey, bestowed the vill on the wife of 

 Roger of Ivry, and it was not till the thirteenth century 

 that the abbey was successful in recovering it from William 

 of Curci, to whom it had passed in the mean time. If the 

 Oxfordshire Commissioners had recorded the " clamores " for 

 Oxfordshire, as their colleagues did for Lincolnshire, we 

 should probably have learnt of the claim of Westminster 

 Abbey to Islip. 



Lastly, it will be noticed that, in spite of the ravages of 

 the Northumbrian raiders, and of the decrease in the culti- 

 vated area, the value of the estate had risen from 7 to 10. 

 This can only mean that the wife of Roger of Ivry dealt so 

 harshly with her tenants that her " little finger " was " thicker 

 than her predecessors' loins," and that the condition of the 

 tenants had changed for the worse. 



8 K., 862. 



