THE DOMESDAY SURVEY 



amount of the arable land thus indicated. A sweeping entry on the 

 fief of the bishop of Worcester tells us that ' In omnibus his Maneriis 

 non possunt esse plus carucas quam dictum est' (fo. 174)/ But in 

 the next column we read of Bockelton, a manor of the bishop of 

 Hereford, that ' ibi possunt esse plus iiii carucx.' There were 

 several manors on the fief of Osbern Fitz Richard short of their 

 complement of ploughs, Elmbridge, for instance, having only ten, 

 though it ought to have had twenty (fo. ij6b). At Hagley, a manor 

 of William Fitz Ansculf, there were but six ploughs, eight short of the 

 complement ; and at Churchill, another of his manors, though six 

 ploughs could be employed, there was but one, which was ' in 

 demesne' (fo. 177). One has to render caruca by plough, but its 

 really important element was the team of eight oxen,^ and the 

 stocking of a manor consisted chiefly in providing oxen for its 

 ploughs. A curious entry under OfFenham (fo, 175(^) informs us 

 that there were there ' oxen for one plough ' {i.e. a team of eight), 

 ' but they drag stone to the church' ; that is, doubtless, the new build- 

 ings which had risen at Evesham under abbot Walter. 



When we turn from the land to the men who dwelt on it, we are 

 confronted by a hierarchy of classes bewildering enough in its variety. 

 Indeed, it would be difficult in any county to find a greater variety. 

 Working downwards, we have first the ' barons ' or tenants-in-chief, 

 and then their under-tenants,^ with whom we must group the name- 

 less ' milites,' who would hold of the ' barons ' by knight-service. Next 

 would come the class described vaguely as ' Francigenas.' Beyond the 

 fact that they were Frenchmen by birth, it is not easy to say of whom 

 this class was composed. In Heming's Cartulary we read that the great 

 abbot iEthelwig ' was dreaded even by the Frenchmen themselves,' * 

 while the Ely document spoken of above (p. 272) describes the Domes- 

 day Survey as made on the oaths ' of the sheriff and of the barons and 

 of their Frenchmen (Jrancigenarum) , and of the whole county, etc' 

 The word seems, indeed, to be a ' wide' one, for of the 26 ' francigenas ' 

 allotted by Ellis to Worcestershire two (at Snodsbury) are entered as 

 ' francigeuce servientes ' (fo. 174^). It is interesting, in connection with 

 this entry, to note that Domesday, at Church Lench, enters one 'franci- 

 gena' (fo. 175), and that the parallel entry in an Evesham cartulary styles 

 him ' quidam serviens.' ^ It is probable that many of these ' francigens' 

 were 'Serjeants' of various kinds whose services were rewarded by land. 



Of the ' Radchenistres ' or ' Radmanni ' something has been said 



* Professor Maitland inadvertently states that this entry is found *at the end of the 

 account of the bishop of Worcester's triple hundred of Oswaldslaw ' {Domesday Book and 

 Beyond, pp. 423-4). This is not so ; the entry covers several places outside that Hundred. 



^ Thus the Lippard entry (fo. 174) : ' i caruca et vi boves,' is equivalent to i| plough 

 (teams). 



* These, as in the striking case of Urse, were themselves also, sometimes, tenants-in- 

 chief elsewhere. 



* 'et ab ipsis Francigenis timebatur' (I. 270). 

 6 Cott. MS. Vesp. B. XXIV. fo. 6. 



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