DOMESDAY SURVEY 



lying waste. After Tostig, the most interesting person mentioned in the 

 survey of this region is Ernuin the priest, who held Beetham and possibly 

 its members under Roger, and occurs as ' the man of Roger of Poitou ' in the 

 survey of Roger's fees in Lincolnshire^ in which county and in Nottingham- 

 shire he or his father may perhaps be identified as the ' Ernuin ' who held 

 several manors before the conquest.^ He seems also to have held a manor in 

 Bedfordshire, which his father had held under King Edward as the king's 

 man.^ In Lincoln city he had a house which had been Earl Morcar's, and 

 in the same county a small estate at Widme,* which he held of King Edward 

 in alms ; another at Ingham, which he had received from the king and queen ; 

 and a third at Fillingham, which he had held of the queen. His father 

 appears to have been named Ernuin Catenase, and to have held the manors of 

 Scagglethorpe and Upper and Nether Poppleton, co. York, which a jury 

 declared that Ernuin the priest ought to hold of Robert Malet.* From these 

 references it would appear that Ernuin had been one of King Edward's 

 priests, and had been presented to more than one church, Beetham being one 

 of them. 



To roughly fill in the picture, of which the outlines have been given, 

 and so to obtain a more or less complete view of Lancashire and its inhabi- 

 tants at this early date, is not difficult. 



In 1066 no monastic house held a single carucate of land in these 

 regions, notwithstanding the gifts in time past of Cartmel and Amounderness 

 to religious uses. The parishes were few in number, and their endowments 

 did not usually exceed i carucate, sometimes falling as low as 2 bovates, as at 

 Blackburn. No large estates existed, nor does the status of the two or three 

 thegns who held estates somewhat larger than their neighbours point to a 

 condition different from that of the more free thegns found in other parts of 

 England. The land between Ribble and Mersey was, with the exception of 

 the demesne, almost entirely in the hands of thegns, or of their Northumbrian 

 peers, drengs, 157 holdings consisting of a homestead and, on an average, 

 2i carucates of land. In Childwall there were four ' radmans,' ' the ' rad- 

 chenistres ' of the southern counties, holding 3 carucates between them. The 

 country may well be described as a huge manor of royal demesne, where the 

 ownership by the sovereign precluded the rise of any great estates or changes 

 of any considerable moment in the status of its inhabitants. The customary 

 services of the thegns in West Derby hundred are fully described in the 

 survey (f. 269 b.) and with little variation applied also to the thegns of the 

 other hundreds between Ribble and Mersey. Each thegn by custom paid a 

 rent (called carucate geld) to the king of two ores of pence — that is 32/ — 

 for each carucate of land, apparently in addition to a rent (farm) of similar 

 amount, and likewise by custom assisted to build or repair the king's 

 houses and other buildings, and all works in or about the king's halls and 

 demesne lands. He also assisted in the construction and repair of ' fisheries ' 

 [piscaria), which comprised fish-stalls'^ or weirs and traps for eels, the former 

 being the primitive method for taking salmon then and for centuries after in 

 vogue, which consisted in making pools or weirs in tidal water, where fish 



1 Dom. Bk. i. f. 352. 2 ibi(j_ f_ 290 and 352. 



sibid. f. 211. *Ibid. f. 371. Ubid. f. 374, col. I. 



6 Of ' riding-men ' and their services, see Dom. Bk. and Beyond, pp. 305-7 ; F.C.H. Worcestershire, i. 250 



^ Locally known as ' fish-yards,' and further north as ' fish-garths.' 



