NOTE 
The date of the Domesday Survey is 1086, and the 
two previous periods referred to are King Edward’s time 
(T.R.E.), which is usually the time of his death, and the 
time at which the manor was acquired by the Norman 
holder. The letter ‘ M,’ prefixed to an entry, stands for 
M[anor]. The ‘hide’ is the unit of assessment to the 
‘geld,’ and the ‘virgate’ its quarter ; thirty (geld) acres 
went toa virgate. The caruca was a plough drawn by eight 
oxen, and the arable land was reckoned by the number of 
ploughs required to till it ; ‘land for half a plough’ (or 
‘for four oxen’) merely means half a plough land. The 
term ‘demesne’ is used both of those manors which a 
lord kept in his own hands (instead of enfeoffing a tenant 
therein), and of that portion of a manor which was kept 
in hand (as a kind of home farm), the peasantry holding 
the rest of it under the lord. The ‘bordars’ were a 
nn of peasants intermediate between the villeins and the 
serfs, 
It should always be remembered that when Domesday 
enters a man as holding a certain place, it does not neces- 
sarily mean that he held the whole of it, for there may be 
similar entries relating to other portions of it. 
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