DOMESDAY SURVEY 



THE survey of Worcestershire in Domesday Book presents so 

 many features of interest and historical importance that it is 

 not easy to do them justice within the compass of a single 

 paper. ' There is no shire,' in Mr. Freeman's words, ' of 

 whose condition during the Conqueror's reign we are able to put together 

 a more vivid picture from the combined evidence of the Survey and of 

 local records.' ^ Devoting a special appendix to ' The condition of 

 Worcestershire under William,' * he observed with truth that ' our 

 accounts of the state of Worcestershire during the reign of WiUiam 

 deserve special examination ; Domesday is remarkably rich in this shire, 

 and we draw much help from the cartulary put together by Heming, a 

 monk of the cathedral monastery.' A more recent writer. Professor 

 Maitland, has devoted, in his work on Domesday,* great attention to 

 Worcestershire, and has claimed for the documents in Heming's Cartulary 

 that ' among the charters that have come down to us there is no series 

 that is longer, there is hardly a long series which is of better repute, than 

 the line of the land-books which belonged to the church of Worcester.' * 

 Problems of assessment, problems of jurisdiction, problems connected 

 with the tenure of land, are in turn raised and partly solved by the 

 evidence that Worcestershire affords ; the growth of a feudal system has 

 been detected on its church lands ; the whole hierarchy of rural life, 

 from the great thegn and the free tenant to the swineherd, the bond- 

 woman and the serf, receives illustration from its survey. For Worces- 

 tershire, alone in England, are preserved the names of the Domesday 

 commissioners, in whose presence bishop and abbot, baron and rapacious 

 sheriff, clamoured and wrangled alike, whether as spoilers or despoiled. 

 Indeed, the personal touches revealed here by the records constitute, 

 doubtless, for most readers, their greatest attraction and value. It is, 

 however, to the information that the Domesday of the shire can be made 

 to yield on such subjects as the financial system, the here important salt 

 industry, and the effect of the Norman Conquest on the landed 

 possessions of the church, that the serious student of history will the most 

 eagerly turn. 



It would seem desirable, at the outset, to name the subsidiary sources 

 available, in this county, for use by the side of Domesday. Foremost 

 among these is the cartulary mentioned above, ' compiled not long after 



' History of the Norman Conquest (1871), IV. 173. * Ibid. (1876), V. 759-766. 

 ^ Domesday Book and Beyond (1897). * Ibid. p. 227. 



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