ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



St. Albans Abbey and Westminster Abbey, where there were no resident 

 lords, it is the exception. 



The Domesday Survey affords evidence of the adoption of the parochial 

 system in Hertfordshire. It may perhaps be assumed that an entry of a priest 

 in the Domesday Book usually among the tenants of the demesne generally 

 implies the existence of a manorial church endowed with glebe."' To 

 understand the references to priests in the Hertfordshire Domesday com- 

 parison must be made with the fuller entries of the same nature which will 

 be found under Essex. There the formula as to the priest is usually ' then 

 as now ' a priest was holding, ' then ' in this formula carrying the conditions 

 back to the time of Edward the Confessor. In the shortened form of the 

 Hertfordshire text only the conditions of the time of the Survey (1086) as 

 regards priests are as a rule given ; but it is evident that the existence of the 

 priest went back to the earlier date, for, if a reconstruction of the holdings 

 at the time of Edward the Confessor be made, it can be shown that most of 

 the resident thegns or other tenants " provided for priests on their demesnes 

 at the places where they lived. Thus ^Ethelmar of Benington, a thegn of 

 King Edward, had lands at Benington, Sacombe, Layston, Ashwell, Hinx- 

 worth, Radwell and Bengeo, but there was only a priest on his lands at 

 Benington ^^ where we know he lived, and a clerk is mentioned on his land 

 at Sacombe ; Wlwin of Eastwick, a thegn of Earl Harold, had lands at 

 Hailey and Eastwick, but it was on his land at Eastwick where he lived 

 that we find a priest ^^ ; Anschil of Ware had lands at Ware and Knebworth, 

 but it was on his lands at Ware where he resided that there was a priest "^ ; 

 Osulf son of Frane had lands at Tring and Studham, but it was on his land 

 at Studham where he lived,*' and where we know that he and his wife built 

 a church in 1064,** that a priest is mentioned ; Alwin Home, a thegn of 

 King Edward, had lands at Watton, Walkern and Sacombe, but there was 

 only a priest on his lands at Walkern where he probably lived. °^ In the 

 same way other tenants provided land for a priest at one of their holdings, 

 presumably where they lived, as, for instance, Aldred, a thegn of King 

 Edward, who had lands at Widford, Layston and Aspenden, but there was a 

 priest only on his lands at Aspenden ** ; JEHnc Blac, a man of Archbishop 

 Stigand, who had lands at Watton, Shephall, Libury in Little Munden, 

 Sacombe, Langport and Throcking, but it was only on his lands at Watton 

 that there was a priest *^ ; Alward, a man of the same archbishop, who had 

 lands at Widford, Meesden and Libury, but it was only on his lands at 

 Meesden that there was a priest ^* ; Wulfward, a man of Asgar the Staller, held 

 lands at Hormead and Wormley with a priest on his lands at Hormead.^' 

 Some who held only one manor had provided a priest, such as Anand, the 

 houscarl of King Edward at Bengeo,™ or Sailt, a man of Earl Lewin at Buck- 

 land.'^ The cases, however, of Alward, a thegn of Earl Harold, who had 



^^ It must not, however, be thought that the absence of a reference to a priest indicates that there was 

 no church, as provision may have been made for the incumbent in some other way than by the endowment 

 of glebe, or the church may have been served from a monastery (see Round, in F.C.H. Berks, i, 3°°)- 



^' There were a good, many landowners who were non-resident besides ecclesiastics; such, we may 

 presume, was Alestan of Boscombe. «" V.C.H. Herts, i, 336-8. " Ibid. 335. ^^ Ibid. 327, 328. 



«' Ibid. 324, 325. « Thorpe, Blpl. Angl. 374. " V.C.H. Herts, i, 342. «« Ibid. 306, 329. 



" Ibid. 305, 320, 321. ^8 Ibid. 306, 307, 309. ^^ Ibid. 322, 342, 



™ Ibid. 334. 71 Ibid. 310. 



291 



