NOTES ON THE DOMESDAY SURVEY OF THE LAND BETWEEN RIBBLE AND MERSEY.

BY WILLIAM FARRER.

TH

HERE is a fascinating interest in the study of Domesday Book, because our knowledge of the state of this country in the latter half of the eleventh century can be largely extended by a critical analysis of the text of the survey. We, therefore, owe a deep debt of gratitude to past workers in this field of research, such as Sir Henry Ellis, Professor E. A. Freeman, the Rev. Robert Eyton, and to present day workers, such as Horace Round, Professor Maitland, and others, for instruction and guidance in the interpretation of this great survey of England, made more than eight hundred years ago. In the case of our own county of Lancaster, little has hitherto been done to analyse and explain the text of the survey of the county, and more particularly of the district lying south of the Ribble, in spite of the many aids to the interpretation of Domesday now available, such as Eyton's Key to Domesday, Round's Domesday Studies, and Professor Maitland's Domesday Book and Beyond. This is to be explained by the fact that the Domesday Commissioners

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have left a very meagre and unsatisfactory account of this district, giving us, with the exception of the survey of the ancient hundred of West Derby, merely a summary of areas assessable to Danegeld, areas held in demesne, areas granted to military tenants, areas of forest, and annual values at different periods. It was, therefore, with considerable misgivings that I took in hand the preparation of a paper to explain and amplify these details, to propose certain interpretations, and to fill up various omissions, or missing details, in a manner which should be reasonable and consistent with our later knowledge of the district. Such a work would have been greatly simplified by twelfth century records, but, unfortunately, these are wanting to a deplorable degree. If, therefore, the following paper is not very explicit upon many points, and deals too largely in hypothesis, the writer claims indulgence upon the ground of paucity of evidence and materials to work upon.

The greater part of England, no doubt including the land between Ribble and Mersey, had been subjected to the tax known as Danegeld, in the time of Ethelred the Unready, that is between 979 and 1016. For the purpose of equal assessment the country was at that time surveyed and subdivided, the hide and carucate being accepted as the unit of assessment. From that time until 1066 there were geld rolls drawn up and carefully adjusted to bring one hide or carucate into fair comparison with another. As the rateable value of a district may vary in our own days in one year as compared with another, or over periods of five or ten years, so too in Saxon times it was found necessary to scrutinise and modify the assessments to Danegeld from time to time. At no period is it likely that the hide or carucate was in any way an exact measure of land. Theoretically, the Lancashire hide

contained six carucates or teamlands, and every teamland represented the area of arable land which a team, or gang of eight oxen, could annually plough. But it was impossible for the basis of assessment to vary with the agricultural outfit of every township, as represented by the number of its oxen fit for the plough, which might vary considerably according to population, the season, the prevalence of or immunity from disease, or destruction by war or wild animals. When, therefore, we speak of a township containing one teamland, we do not mean that it possessed a team of eight oxen, or arable land sufficient for one team to plough, but we mean that such a township was assessed to Danegeld as one carucate of land.

Now the Lancashire hide contained six teamlands, whereas in other parts of the country hide and carucate are practically synonymous, the carucate or teamland. being the fiscal unit in Norfolk, Suffolk, Lincolnshire, Yorkshire, Derby, Nottingham, and Leicester, which is elsewhere represented by the hide. In some, if not all, of these counties there are distinct signs of a system of grouping manors and townships to form hundreds of six or twelve teamlands. The land between Ribble and Mersey bears a resemblance to both systems, to the one in the fact that here six teamlands were grouped to form a small hundred for assessment purposes; to the other in that we find these groups described as hides, and the whole district as containing four score geldable hides save one. The mixed character of this district, due to its early connection with Northumbria, and subsequent conquest and assimilation by Mercia, is apparent in this, as in other features, such as dialect and place-names. The grouping of six teamlands to form one geldable hide, appears to have been effected with the object of reducing the levy of Danegeld in this district to only one-sixth of

the amount exacted from each geldable teamland in other counties. Probably this very favourable treatment was due to the fact that previous to the Conquest the whole district belonged to the Crown.

The Chronicles tell us of the levying of numerous gelds. The earliest in 991, and others in 994, 1002, 1007, 1009, 1014, and 1018. Edward the Confessor levied the tax more than once, but abolished it in 1051. William the Conqueror was no sooner crowned than "he laid on men a geld exceeding stiff," and the following year "he set a mickle geld" on the people. In the winter of 1083-4 he raised a geld of seventy-two pence upon the hide. This was the last assessment before Domesday. At midwinter in the year 1085, the Conqueror “wore his crown at Gloucester, and there had deep speech with his wise men," the outcome being the mission throughout all England of barons, legates, or justices charged with the duty of collecting from the verdicts of the shires, the hundreds, and the townships, a survey or description of the realm. This survey is preserved to us in Domesday Book, completed in 1086. The commissioners were to ascertain (1) the name of each vill, (2) who held it in the time of Edward the Confessor (T. R. E.), (3) who was the present possessor, (4) how many hides or carucates in the manor, (5) how many ploughs in the demesne, (6) how many homagers-i.e., homines or men, (7) how many villeins, (8) how many cottars, how many serfs, (9) how many free tenants, (10) how many tenants in socage, (11) how much wood, meadow, and pasture, (12) the number of mills and fishponds, (13) what had been added to, or taken away from the place, (14) what was the gross value in the time of King Edward the Confessor, (15) what was the present value, (16) and how much each freeman or sokeman had, and whether any advance could

be made in the value. This was to be ascertained at three specific periods: firstly, on the day on which King Edward was alive and dead, expressed by the term tempore Regis Edwardi; secondly, at the time when the Conqueror bestowed it upon his vassals; thirdly, at the date of the making of the survey.

But before examining the answers given to these questions by the jurors from the six hundreds between Ribble and Mersey, the ownership and territorial condition of this region before the Conquest claims a little attention.

Unfortunately, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles give us very little information about this district. Under the year 798 there is mention of a great battle at Whalley in Northumbria, and under the year 923 there is reference to the reduction of Manchester, in Northumbria, by a Mercian force under King Edward, who afterwards repaired and manned the town. But after the victory of Athelstan at Brunanburgh in 937, over the combined forces of Olaf, the Danish king or earl, and Constantine, king of the Scots, the disintegration of Northumbria commenced. In 945 Cumbria was ceded to Malcolm I., king of Scotland, and before 970 two earldoms had been formed out of the principality, one answering to the modern county of York, the other to the counties of Northumberland and Durham. During this period the country between Ribble and Mersey was added to Mercia. Of this we have clear evidence. Firstly, as a result of this conquest it was placed under the ecclesiastical administration of the Bishop of Lichfield; secondly, it became part of the demesne of the Crown, and was known as Terra Regis; thirdly, place-names and dialect are found to have greater affinities with Mercia than Northumbria. On the other hand, Lancashire north of