THE DOMESDAY SURVEY 
For a parallel to such action we must turn to Hitchin, not far 
away, in Hertfordshire. As held by King William in 1086 it had been 
swollen by the action of Norman sheriffs of that county ; but of one 
at least of its additions we read that it was Earl Harold who had annexed 
it to Hitchin, ‘ by violence and wrongfully as the shire testifies.” The 
importance of such evidence lies in its suggestion that there may have 
been similar changes effected in the days before the Conquest in places 
where Domesday does not make any mention of the fact. 
Of Bedford itself the account in the Survey is singularly short and 
unsatisfying. As the county town it is entered apart from the rest of 
the shire, and is not even treated as included in the royal demesne’ ; but 
it differs from the chief towns of the shires surrounding in the singular 
brevity of its description. Cambridge, for instance, fills a whole column 
of Domesday, and the account of Northampton is nearly as long ; to 
Huntingdon is assigned a column and a half, and to Buckingham and 
Hertford respectively the greater part of a column. Why the entry on 
Bedford should be restricted to seven lines it seems impossible to explain. 
Even of this terse entry more than half is occupied with an act of agres- 
sion on the part of the Bishop of Lincoln. We are left in ignorance of 
so important a matter as the annual value of Bedford to the Crown, and 
the only fact, indeed, on which we obtain information is the assessment 
of the town (vi//a) ; for it is not styled a borough (durgus), although we 
read, towards the end of the Survey, of its ‘ burgesses.’ ‘This assessment 
is akin to that of Cambridge and of Huntingdon ; for while Cambridge 
is assessed at a whole Hundred, and Huntingdon at 50 hides, Bedford is 
assessed at half a Hundred, that is, presumably, at 50 hides. So too 
Shrewsbury was assessed at 100 hides and Chester at 50. * But the 
peculiarity in the case of Bedford is that its assessment was only for land 
and sea service, and implied probably a contribution of ten men to either.’ 
It would seem from this that the town was not assessed to the ‘ geld,’ 
and that such is the meaning of Domesday when it says that it was 
never apportioned into ‘ hides’ (4idata) with the exception of one ‘ hide’ 
with which St. Paul’s was endowed. 
In its regular and stately course the great Survey proceeds from the 
lands of the king himself to those of the spiritual lords. At the head 
of these are those alien magnates, the Bishops of Coutances and Bayeux, 
who held their great fiefs, extending over many counties, in a personal, 
not an official capacity. The former was a trusted friend of the Con- 
queror ; the latter was William’s half-brother. In Bedfordshire as in 
Northamptonshire Geoffrey, Bishop of Coutances, held the bulk of his 
estates as successor to an English landowner, Borgeret, Borgret, Borred, 
Borret, Burgret, Burred or Burret, ‘thegn of King Edward.’ These 
estates lay largely along the N orthamptonshire border, namely at Knot- 
* ¢ Apposuit Heraldus comes in Hiz’ (fo. 133). 
2 For the importance and the implication of this separate treatment see Maitland’s Domesday Book 
and Beyond, pp. 176-80, 212. 
3 Compare Feudal England, p. 156 ; and my paper in Domesday Studies, pp. 117-21. 
4 Ibid. 
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