THE PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS. 
197 
When, however, I came across the copy of a deed reciting that a 
certain field was " lyinge in landscore," and elsewhere reference to 
"landscore land," the matter assumed a very different aspect; and 
I cannot doubt that we have here a distinct and unmistakeable 
vestige of the tenure of the "mark." The field in question was 
that known as Thistle Park, which retained a very mixed and 
complicated ownership until the present day. Mr. J. Brooking 
Eowe also informs me that a large quantity of land about Elburton 
is or has been held in undivided portions. This has probably the 
same origin ; and when we find not only the existence of a well- 
recognized division of land under such a title as that of " landscore," 
but the use of the term to signify a peculiar kind of holding, we 
may be satisfied that the parentage of such a peculiar custom is to 
be found in the old Teutonic "mark." If so, we have reason for 
the further inference that this part of Devon was the scene of 
active Saxon colonization from the sea long before the county could 
have passed into Saxon hands. 
Let us now see what is to be gleaned from Domesday Book 
concerning this corner of the county. No nation in the world 
possesses an historical document of such antiquity and value as 
Norman William's great Survey of England, which excited so 
sorely the wrath of his Saxon subjects ; and yet, familiar as its 
references are, and easy of access as it has been made by its photo- 
zincographed reproduction, there is no record which has been used 
to so little general purpose. Here and there for special neighbour- 
hoods, or for a special end, it has been dealt with more or less 
exhaustively ; but the historian has yet to come who will grasp 
its lessons as a whole, and set fully before us the invaluable story 
it has to tell of the mighty changes that fell upon the English 
people as the result of the battle of Senlac. 
I need hardly explain the nature of the Domesday Survey. Made 
by order of the Conqueror, in the year 1086, when he had sat upon 
the English throne just twenty years, it set forth, to use the terse 
and indignant language of the writer of this portion of the Saxon 
Chronicle, " what or how much each man had who was a holder of 
land in England, in land or in cattle, and how much money it 
might be worth. So very narrowly he caused it to be traced out, 
that there was not one single hide, nor one yard of land, nor even 
— it is a shame to tell, though it seemed to him no shame to do — 
N 
