infinitesimal; in Yorkshire it was slight; but in the Midlands, which had long been the battle-ground of rival feudal magnates, it was so extensive that, as here in Northamptonshire after the Conquest, there was more land exempted as "waste" than there was capable of paying. Before leaving this subject I briefly compare the cases of Northamptonshire and of East Sussex. In the former, we have seen, it is only our document that preserves for us evidence of the ravages in 1065; Domesday does not record them, because they had then (1086) been repaired. But in East Sussex, the entries are fuller; and as was observed by Mr. Hayley, an intelligent local antiquary :— It is the method of Domesday Book, after reciting the particulars relating to each Manor, to set down the valuation thereof, at three several periods, to wit, the time of King Edward the Confessor, afterwards when the new tenant entered upon it, and again at the time when the survey was made. Now it is to be observed in perusing the account of the Rape of Hastings in that book, that in several of the Manors therein at the second of these periods, it is recorded of them that they were waste, and from this circumstance it may upon good ground be concluded what parts of that Rape were marched over by, and suffered from the ravages of the two armies of the Conqueror and King Harold; and indeed, the situations of those Manors is such as evidently shows their then devastated state to be owing to that cause." Mr. Freeman's treatment of this theory was highly characteristic. In the Appendix he devoted to the subject' he first contemptuously observed of the allusion to Harold's army: This notion would hardly have needed any answer except from the sort of sanction given to it by the two writers who quote Mr. Hayley. I do not believe that any army of any age ever passed through a district without doing some damage, but to suppose that Harold systematically harried his own kingdom does seem to me the height of absurdity. Quoted in Ellis's Introduccion to Domesday, i. 315-6. Sussex Manors "Waste" in 1066 151 And he, further, indignantly denied that such a King as Harold was "likely to mark his course by systematic harrying." Now, Mr. Hayley had never charged him with "systematic harrying; he had merely traced with much ingenuity, the approach of his army to Senlac by the damage, Mr. Freeman admits, its passage, when assembled, must have caused. The fact is that Mr. Hayley had, and Mr. Freeman had not, read his Domesday "with common care." The latter started from the hasty assertion that the lasting nature of the destruction wrought at this time is shown by the large number of places round about Hastings which are returned in Domesday as waste." had he been "Swegen Hence he argued, Harold, even had he been himself" 66 could not have done the sort of lasting damage which is implied in the lands being returned as waste twenty years after. The ravaging must have been something thorough and systematic, like the ravaging of Northumberland a few years later. The whole argument rests on a careless reading of Domesday. It was on passages such as these that Mr. Hayley had relied: Totum manerium T.R.E. valebat xx. lib. Et post vasta fuit. Modo xviii. lib. et x. sol. Totum manerium T.R.E. valebat xiiii. lib. Postea vastatum fuit. Modo xxii lib. Totum manerium T.R.E. valebat cxiiii sol. Modo vii. lib. Vastatum fuit.7 Thus, so far from being returned in 1086 as "waste," these Manors, we see, had already recovered from their devastation at the Conquest, and had even, in some cases, increased their value. And so Mr. Freeman's argument falls to the ground. The phrase employed by Mr. Freeman in criticising Prof. Pearson 7 See Ellis, ut supra. But as he was eager to vindicate Harold from a quite imaginary charge, I will try to clear William from Mr. Freeman's very real one. Having wrongly concluded that the ravages were "lasting," and must therefore have been "systematic," Mr. Freeman wrote: There can be little doubt but that William's ravages were not only done systematically, but were done with a fixed and politic purpose (p. 413) . . . there can be little doubt that they were systematic ravages done with the settled object of bringing Harold to a battle. (p. 741). Possibly the writer had in his mind the harrying of the lands of the Athenians, as described in the pages of Thucydides: but how can it have been politic for William, not only to provoke Harold, but to outrage the English people? It was Harold with whom his quarrel lay; and as to those he hoped to make his future subjects, to ravage their lands wilfully and wantonly was scarcely the way to commend himself to their favour: it would rather impel them, in dread of his ways, to resist his dominion to the death. But if William's policy be matter of question, Domesday at least is matter of fact; and Mr. Freeman's followers cannot be surprised at the opposition he provoked, when we find him thus ridiculing a student for a charge he never made, and proved to have himself erred from his careless reading of Domesday. I now append an analysis of the roll, showing the proportion of land "gewered," of "inland," of terra regis, of land which had not paid (in square brackets), and of "waste." The totals in square brackets are those given in the document; the others are those actually accounted for. "Wered," like "Wara" (supra, p. 115), refers to assessment, and corresponds with the "defendit se" phrase in Domesday. It seems here to represent the land which had actually paid. The persons mentioned as not having paid can in most Thus "Robert the Earl's wife" is one cases be identified. "Wrongly given by Ellis and Cockayne as 10 Wrongly given by Ellis as "viii. and xx." "The MS. reads, "thus micel is gewered 12 and i. hida and viiii. and fifti hida inland." The text is clearly corrupt. 13 There is no entry for "waste" in this hundred, so that possibly the words, "xv. hida westa" are omitted. 18 There are clearly some words omitted here in the Peterborough transcript. We must read: "and thereof is 'gewered' [? 26 hide and] five and twenty hides inland. of those in Rothwell Hundred, whose land was "unwered." This was clearly Maud, wife of Count Robert of Mortain, who had been given lands by her father, Roger of Montgomery, at Harrington in this Hundred. Domesday, it is true, where it figures as "Arintone," knows it only as "Terra æcclesiæ de Grestain" (222 6); but a charter of Richard I. (per Inspeximus) confirms to the Abbey "ex dono Matildis Comitisse Moreton . xxxii. hidas terre quas dederat ei pater suus Rogerus de Montegomerico, scilicet apud Haxintonam (sic) viii. hidas, etc.""" As the lands had first been given to Roger, then by him to his daughter, and, finally, by her to the Abbey, I cannot think our document earlier, at any rate, than 1068. Edith, whose name proves it not to be later than 1075, is entered as "the lady, the King's wife," holding eight hides in Neuesland Hundred, and again as a holder in Rothwell Hundred, under the name of "the King's wife." Both entries, doubtless, refer to her wide-spreading Manor of "Tingdene" (1. 222), parts of which lay in both the above Hundreds. Of the other holders we may notice "Urs" (? Urse d'Abetot), and Witeget the priest"; but these are quite eclipsed by Richard and William Engaine, of whom the former occurs twice and the latter thrice on the roll. In Spelho Hundred "Richard seems to be credited with ten hides at "Habintune" on which "nan peni" had been paid. In Domesday his holding at Abintone is given as four hides (i. 229). In the same Hundred, William's land at "Multune" is in default. Moulton is not entered under his fief in Domesday, but under that of Robert de Buci we find a "William" holding of him a hide and a virgate and a half in Moulton. This was William Engaine, as was the "William" of our roll; and in the Hen. I.-Hen. II. survey, we find land in Maulton entered as of Engaine's fee. Still more interesting is it to note that so late as 25 Ed. I. more than two centuries after Domesday, John Engayne is found holding half a fee in Moulton of Ralf Basset, and Basset of the 15 Infra, p. 215. "Monasticon, vi. 1090. 15 |