By the Rev. J. J. Reynolds. 



265 



and no rumours of the miraculous virtue of the bones of St. Edward 

 had probably yet been heard. In the Domesday Survey however, 

 the borough was assessed at " 2 marks of silver, for 20 hides of land." 

 This I imagine proves it to have been a place of considerable 

 importance. Salisbury, then a very important town, was assessed 

 at 50 hides, but Dorchester only at 10, and Exeter and Bridport 

 only at 5 each. Towns which had little or no arable land, paid 

 geld in proportion to a certain number of hides, assessed according 

 to their value and wealth ; we may therefore, I think, conclude that 

 Shaftesbury was at this period twice as rich and important a place 

 as Dorchester, and four times as rich and important as Exeter or 

 Bridport. 



Besides the Abbey and its offices, which, I infer, were reckoned 

 separately, there were in Edward the Confessor's time, 262 houses 

 within the borough. I take it the cottages of the peasantry were 

 not enumerated, but only the houses of the burghers. In the 

 20th year of William, or rather in the year the survey was actually 

 taken, 85 of these houses had been destroyed or ruined. As signs 

 of former greatness three moniers still remained paying "one mark 

 of silver and twenty shillings to the King, on each new coinage.'' 



The possessions of the Abbey were considerable. In confirming 

 Kingston in Corfe to the Abbey, King William I. retained a 

 hide of land, or rather 20 acres valued at one hide, on which stood 

 the old Castle of Warehara, which he desired to hold and rebuild. 

 He gave to the Abbey in exchange the Church and advowson of 

 Gillingham and also restored the lands which Harold had seized in 

 Mapperton, Stoke-Wake, Cheselbourne, Stour, and Piddle. Suc- 

 cessive kings and others continued to enrich the Abbey with grants 

 of manors, lands, tithes or advowsons. Henry I. granted 

 Donhead Manor for providing the Nuns with vestments. King 

 John gave two hides of land in Ferne, one in Ashgrove and one 

 mill in Donhead, and one in Ludwell. Edward I. granted the 

 Abbess a free warren in her manor of Donhead. We at length find 

 the Abbey with possessions in the borough of Shaftesbury, and with 

 the advowsons of all the livings within the borough, also with the 

 advowsons of Cann S. Rurabold, of S. John and S. James juxta 



