A HISTORY OF WORCESTERSHIRE 



the Evesham fief, in fact, they assign him no rights at all (fo. 175^), and 

 under his own fief they vouch the county's statement for the fact that 

 Evesham paid the Bishop T.R.E,, in respect of Hampton, nothing but 

 the geld due in his Hundred (fo. 174^). The entry of the manors tvi^ice 

 over shows us how difficult the question was ; and the Domesday com- 

 missioners had, in fact, to arrange a compromise with the Bishop, by 

 which he consented, at their request, to abandon his claim to hold these 

 manors in demesne on the Abbot publicly admitting them to belong to 

 his Hundred of Oswaldslow, and to be liable to geld, suit, znAfyrd there 

 accordingly.* It is an interesting feature of this agreement that among 

 its witnesses are at least two of the dispossessed English tenants of the 

 bishop of Worcester, Edric ' de Hindelep ' and Godric ' de Piria.'* 



It was explained above that the knight-service due from the bishop 

 of Worcester under the Norman system has to be carefully distinguished 

 from the old English system of liability to fyrd.^ Domesday itself is 

 almost silent on this knight's service, though one knight of the Bishop 

 is referred to incidentally under Crombe.* The men {homines) also who 

 appear in Domesday as tenants on his great Gloucestershire manor of 

 Westbury (on Trym) are styled knights {milites) in a (probably) earlier 

 survey.* Again, the return of knights' fees made by the bishop of 

 Worcester in 1 166 shows us 37I fees carved out of the episcopal estates 

 ' antiquitus' ;* and the context shows that this was done in the lifetime 

 of bishop Wulfstan. In short, here as elsewhere,' it is clear that knights 

 had been enfeoffed before Domesday, and that the silence of that record 

 is no proof to the contrary. The valuable return of the Bishop's fees 

 temp. John* shows us where the fees were situate, and its collation with 

 the Domesday Survey and the return of 11 66 would throw a great deal 

 of light on the topography and genealogy of the county at that early 

 period. 



Here it is only possible to touch upon two points. In 1166 we 

 find William de Beauchamp holding 1 5 knights' fees, created ' anti- 

 quitus,' of the Bishop ; ® and under John we find a later William de 

 Beauchamp holding these same fees, and are told where they were, the 



* Heming's Cartulary, I. 75, 296. The purport of the ' conventio ' is suggestive of the 

 'fines' of later days. 



I * See, for them, Domesday, fo. 173^. 



^ The well-known story of William Rufiis calling out t\\& fyrd in 1094 as a means of 

 financial extortion (Florence of Worcester, II. 35) proves that the old native host was retained 

 concurrently with the Norman knights (Stubbs' Const. Hist., I. 301). 



* Similarly incidental mention of enfeoffed knights will be found on fos. 176-176^, 

 where Ralf 'miles' holds of Ralf ' de Todeni,' one of Ralf de Mortimer's knights is found 

 holding of him, and ' two knights ' hold a manor of Roger de Laci. So too, on fo. 172, 

 ' four knights ' hold land of Urse. 



* See Feudal England, p. 294, and Heming's Cartulary, p. 84. 

 ® Red Book of the Exchequer, p. 300. 



' See my Feudal England for the full argument. 



' Testa de Nevill, pp. 41-2 (see p. 236 above). 



* j^i5 had heen remitted to him, in respect of these fees, in 1 156 (Rot. Pip. 2 Hen. 

 II.). 



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