A HISTORY OF DEVONSHIRE 



moment to remember that in Devon these booklands consisted of clearly- 

 defined areas sometimes adjoining one another, but more often separated by 

 waste lands^ which formed part of the royal forest until the men of Devon in 

 1204 paid 5,000 marks to have the county disafforested up to 'the regards of 

 Dartmoor and Exmoor." These booklands were by no means manors in the 

 legal acceptation of the term,' only very few of them having free tenants ; 

 indeed the original grants were rather grants of townships or tithings which 

 were subsequently split up into sections, the maneria or homesteads* of the 

 record. We see, however, manors in the making, as when lands which had 

 been free booklands (held pariter or in paragio) before the Conquest were 

 added to other homesteads as dependencies. Some of the booklands were 

 very small, not more than 30 acres. But whatever the size might be the 

 basis of a bookland or squire's estate, or Rittergut, as the Germans would call it, 

 was the lord's hall, sele,' or homestead (manerium), called also the court [curia), 

 with its appurtenant rickyard or barton and a certain quantity of land for the 

 support of the sitting tenant, known as the lordship ' inland ' or demesne. 

 With this hall was combined as the second element in a bookland another 

 definite area of land known as the village land, ' outland,' peasants' land, or 

 Bauergut, as the Germans would call it, occupied by the ancient cultivators 

 of the soil upon condition of cultivating the lord's land for him." This 

 second element supplied as it were the capital for cultivating the lord's land. 

 These two features are present in all the Devonshire manors, though in two 

 cases the demesne has disappeared because the whole was farmed by the 

 villagers,'^ and in three others the lord has absorbed the villagers' land into 

 the demesne.* In one case a villein has the whole in demesne.' 



One feature is, however, peculiar to the Devonshire booklands. The 

 lord's land is not as in other parts of England intermixed with the villagers' 

 land, the lord having strips in the open field where the villagers have strips 

 also ; but the lord's land is apart and often at some distance from the 

 villagers' land. Thus Cottle's barton, the lordship, lies more than half a mile 

 from North Tawton township and village, Totleigh barton, the lordship of 

 Black Torrington, is an outlier of the parish. The north manor and town of 

 CoUompton, though detached from Silverton, is the demesne manor of Silverton 

 hundred. Knightshayes lies away from Bolham, Colcombe from Colyton, 

 Delamore from Cornwood, Chumwell from Bratton Fleming, Hulham barton 

 from Hulham village,^" and Newton and Ford the demesne from the village 

 and land of Drewsteignton. Plympton Earl and Dodbrook are demesnes to 



' Trans. Devon Assoc, xxvi, 143. ' Pipe R. 6 John. The charter in Trans. Devon Assoc, xxxiii, 605. 



' Maitland, Domesday and Beyond, 64, 91. 



* Called ' Knystesmetehom ' in an old English document in Dugdale, Mon. ii, 477. 



' Maitland, op. cit. 108. 'Then there were two halls, now it is one manor.' Thus Sele a/w Zeal 

 Monachorum, i.e. the Monks' Hall, is the present name for the monks' nimet or intake of Domesday, fol. i8z. 

 In Poillei's gift to the monastery of Seez (fial. of Doc. Trance, 235) we hear of a certain manor called 

 Harrowbear (Baraberga), part or member of Buckland (monachorum), with its hall in that township {villa). 

 In the Berkshire Domesday, fol. 63, complaint is made of the removal of the hall. Freeman, Norman 

 Conquest, V, 771 ; Maitland, Domesday and Beyond, 109. 



" Trans. Devon Assoc, xxvi, 140 ; Maitland, op. cit. 58. 



' At Gorhuish, fol. 292, and Culbeer, fol. 314^. 



' At Endscott, fol. 12 2^5, Cheldon, fol. 310*, and Loviston, fol. 3883. In a lease of Ottery St. Mary 

 to the men of the place in 1 145 {Cal. of Doc. France, No. 11) one stipulation is that 'they will cause to be 

 restored to the lordship whatever belonged to it of ancient right.' 



' At Woodscombe, fol. 404. 



'" Trans. Devon Assoc, xxvii, 404. 



384 



