THE DOMESDAY SURVEY 



as a possession for the monastery at Worcester, reserving to himself a 

 life-interest. On his dying in the midst of the struggle for the crown 

 between Cnut and Eadmund 'Ironside' {circ. 1016), these vills were 

 seized, they said, by ' iEvic ' (or ' Eire ') then sheriff of Staffordshire, in 

 the hands of whose successors they remained to the wrong of the 

 monastery/ Mr. Eyton, without alluding to this story, observed that the 

 connection of the sheriff of Staffordshire with these manors was prob- 

 ably the cause ' that led to Tarbeck, Clent, and Brome ^ being subse- 

 quently annexed to Staffordshire. . . . These estates are now ' re- 

 mised ' into Worcestershire." 



We have seen, by this time, how needful it is, in dealing with the 

 Domesday Survey, to bear in mind the fluctuation, at various times, of 

 the area of the shire. But there was another disturbing element, which, 

 although it did not affect the actual county boundaries, had a very 

 important influence on its survey in Domesday Book. It appears to 

 have been overlooked by students of the Worcestershire Domesday, 

 whether in the past or in the present, whether general or local, that the 

 surveys of several manors in the county are found in quite another part 

 of Domesday Book.* In the midst of the King's lands in Herefordshire 

 (fo. i8oi^) we find surveys of Martley, Feckenham, Holloway,^ Hanley 

 (Castle), Bushley* with Pull (Court), QueenhiU (Chapel), Eldersfield, and 

 Suckley. Moreover, under Gloucestershire (fo. 163^) we find another 

 and independent survey of Hanley (Castle), of which place Domesday 

 was supposed to contain no mention. On the one hand, these entries 

 constitute an important addition to the survey of the shire, of which 

 they affect the manorial history and the reckoning of the population in 

 1086 ; on the other, they possess, for the Domesday student, a quite 

 peculiar value in so far as they preserve independent surveys of the same 

 estate. One alone of the places affected, namely Hanley (Castle), is 

 described by Domesday as 'in Gloucestershire' (fo. 180^). The ex- 

 planation of this description is found under Gloucestershire (fo. 163*^), 

 where we learn that, with Forthampton, it belonged to that great lord- 

 ship of Tewkesbury, which had been held before the Conquest by 

 Brihtric son of ^Elfgar,' and 'the members' of which paid their geld at 



' Heming's Cartulary, pp. 276-7. 



* Probably included in the Domesday Survey of Clent. * Staffordshire Domesday, p. 8. 



* See, for instance, Nash's Worcestershire, Ellis' Introduction to Domesday, II. 507, Mait- 

 land's Domesday Book and Beyond, p. 454, and Proceedings of the Worcester Architectural and 

 Archaological Society (1892), p. 264. ^ Adjoining Feckenham. 



® Confused, not unnaturally, with Bisley (in Gloucestershire) by Professor Freeman {Nor- 

 man Conquest, IV. 762), and in The Red Book of the Exchequer (pp. 568, 656, 662, 689, 704). 

 ' The story of this great thegn should come under Gloucestershire, but in his appendix 

 on 'Brihtric and Matilda' {Norm. Conq. [1871], IV. 761-4), Professor Freeman pointed out 

 that the legend connecting their names is ' slightly ' supported by its placing his arrest at 

 Hanley, ' which we see from Domesday was really one of his lordships.' He spoke of it, 

 indeed, as a 'Gloucestershire ' entry (p. 762), but the place is Hanley (Castle), Worcestershire. 

 The words of the rhyming story are : 



' Pris fu a Haneleye a son maner, 

 Le ior ke Saint Wlstan li ber 

 Sa chapele auoit dedie.' 

 239 



