A HISTORY OF WORCESTERSHIRE 



frequent mention, but they are normally entered in connection with the 

 ploughs, at the head of the agricultural classes. At Pedmore the priest 

 is even entered between the villeins and the bordars (fo. 177), while in 

 another case (fo. 1771^) we read of '18 bordars and i priest with i 

 plough.' At Broughton there are entered '5 villeins and 10 bordars 

 and a church and a priest,' who have between them six ploughs (fo. 

 ijjb), and at Halesowen the villeins, bordars, ' Radmans,' 'and a church 

 with two priests' have between them 41 1 ploughs (fo. 176). It is 

 clear, therefore, that in this county Domesday is only interested in the 

 priests and churches as owners, with the agricultural classes, of the 

 all-important plough-oxen. There is occasional entry, however, of tithes 

 as bestowed on religious houses ; Westminster Abbey had received the 

 tithes of the King's revenues at Droitwich (fo. ij^b), and William Fitz- 

 Osbern had bestowed on his abbeys of Cormeilles and of Lyre those of 

 his Worcestershire estates (fo. i8o<^).^ 



Of the lay holders of land in the shire earl Roger claims precedence, 

 but his holding is chiefly of interest for his great manor of Halesowen 

 being, in consequence of that tenure, transferred to his own county of 

 Shropshire, only to be restored in modern times.^ His one other manor, 

 Salwarpe, was secured by Urse as under-tenant, and in its woodland he 

 made his park, which absorbed the church of Coventry's land there, 

 of which also he was under-tenant. Next to earl Roger we must rank 

 William Fitz Ansculf the lord of Dudley, Ralf de Tosni ('Todeni'), 

 Osbern Fitz Richard of Richard's Castle, and the terrible Urse the sheriff. 

 These four had considerable estates, but only the first and fourth need 

 special notice here. For Ralf and Osbern were Herefordshire lords, 

 the former holding Clifford Castle, while his chief seat appears to have 

 been at Flamstead in Hertfordshire. William Fitz Ansculf, whose 

 castle at Dudley and its ' castlery ' are mentioned, had succeeded his 

 father Ansculf, who had been sheriff of Surrey, and, apparently, of Bucks, 

 and who belonged to the great Picard house of the vidames of Picquigny. 

 From Ansculf's brother Ghilo descended the baronial house of 'Pinkeney,' 

 the head of whose barony was in Northamptonshire. William Fitz 

 Ansculf appears in Domesday as a tenant-in-chief in eleven counties, in 

 some of which, especially in Bucks, he held great estates. His 

 Worcestershire lands were but a small portion of the fief of which 

 Dudley was the head, and which was afterwards held, as the barony of 

 Dudley, by the families of Paynel and of Someri. 



The dominant personality revealed to us, in Worcestershire, by 

 Domesday is that of Urse the sheriff. In Mr. Freeman's vigorous 

 words : 



The terrible sheriff . . . Urse of Abetot was only the chief of a whole band 

 of Norman spoilers, who seem to have fallen with special eagerness on the lands of 

 the Church in this particular shire. But the sheriff was the greatest and most 

 daring offender of all. He built his castle in the very jaws of the monks of 

 Worcester so that the foss of the fortress encroached on the monastic burying- 

 ground.' 



* See p. 240 above. * See p. 238 above. ^ Norman Conquest (187 i), IV. 171. 



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