THE DOMESDAY SURVEY 



by 'Radchen[istres], id est liberi homines T.R.E.' (fo. i66). This sug- 

 gestive entry proves to be in perfect harmony with the survey of that 

 abbey's Worcestershire manors (fos. 174^-175). For we there find a 

 number of similar estates entered as having been held T.R.E., sometimes 

 by ' liberi homines,' sometimes by riding-men. At Longdon ' there were 

 ' nine free men (who) held 1 8 hides, and mowed for one day in the 

 meadows of their lord, and did such service as they were bidden ' ; at 

 Powick there were eight ' radmans ' who ' mowed for one day a year in 

 the meadows of the lord, and did all the service that was bidden them.' 

 As there are several entries describing the services as ' those which are 

 performed by the other freemen,' we may infer that ' free men ' and 

 ' radmans ' are here used indifferently. This important conclusion is 

 confirmed by the evidence of the Worcester cartulary. Under the 

 heading De liberis de Halleg' (Hallow in Grimley) two tenements are 

 there entered as owing this riding-service.^ At Grimley itself, it is 

 under De liberis that we find payments of 2\d. a year ' pro equita- 

 tura,' ^ and at Charlton it is, similarly, under De liberis de Cherletun\ 

 that the payments ' pro equitatura ' occur.* Archdeacon Hale was 

 doubtless right in identifying this service with Bracton's ' service of riding 

 with the lord or the lady,' or ' from manor to manor.' ^ One unpublished 

 instance, in which such service was due to the sacrist of Evesham, seems 

 decisive on the point.* The duty, in short, was that of attendance as 

 escort, but not, in my opinion, of military service. 



In addition to that exclusion of the sheriff which appears to have 

 been deemed, in those days, a high and enviable privilege, the Bishop 

 possessed certain rights which seem to have been independent of the 

 special privileges belonging to the Hundred of Oswaldslow. Foremost 

 among these was that circset to which the abbots of Pershore, West- 

 minster, and Evesham, and indeed others, were also entitled. Domesday 

 records the county's verdict that the Bishop was entitled at Martinmas to 

 one (horse) load of the best grain from every hide of land belonging to 

 the church of Worcester, whether held in free or in villein tenure (fo. 

 173^^). It was also the county's verdict that the church of Pershore was 

 entitled to circset from 300 hides (of which 100 were its own and 200 

 belonged to the abbot of Westminster), that is, Domesday proceeds to 



* Barely five miles, as the crow flies, from Deerhurst. At Deerhurst the * riding-men ' 

 had to reap, mow, plough and harrow (fo. 166). On the great royal manor of Tewkesbury 

 they had to plough and harrow for their lord (fo. 163). This evidence is important for 

 Worcestershire, because at Netherton, a manor of the monks of Worcester, we find that 

 Osbert Guidon, * for his holding, has to follow the Prior and Cellarer, and any other monks 

 when they will, with his own horse, at their cost ; and must plough, twice in the year, half 

 an acre, and sow it with his own seed, and must harrow, and must do three " benrip," and, 

 moreover, must find one man to mow for one day' (Hale, lib). Archdeacon Hale thought 

 that these were villein services, incompatible with 'equitatura,' but this was a misapprehen- 

 sion {Ibid. p. Ixxvii.). 



^ Hale's Registrum, p. 50a (cf. p. 47/'). 



^ Ibid. pp. 44^, 44^. * Ibid. yib. * Ibid. p. Ixxii. 



" 'In Haccheslench [Atch Lench] . . . Idem Osbertus tenet dimidiam hidam ut 

 equitet cum sacrista in equo proprio' (Cott. MS. Vesp. B. XXIV. fo. I3<^. 



251 



