A History–The Normans Part 2

My Part 1 was taken up mostly with extracts from the Domesday Book, and I left with three questions that reading these extracts might raise. I want to deal here with the first–“What did it all mean?”. In 1085 William held ‘deep consultations’ with his advisers at Gloucester, and decided to send out hundreds of clerks to find out who ‘owned’ what. This was a bit academic since he had said, as king, it was all his, and he had made sure that the thousands of Anglo-Saxon lords of manors had been downgraded, and William’s counts, bishops and other pals now ‘held’ the land as his tenants in chief. But clearly they didn’t know values for taxes so William’s unbiased clerks went forth, and by 1086 presented William with their findings–it was the Domesday Book (D.B.), and an impressive achievement.

The D.B. is in a clerk’s very concise code–thus we need to realise that it is a list of land values only for geld (taxes) and not total values; nor is it a census of population, only of manor holders and freemen; and finally we have to be precise on verb tenses–‘was’, ‘were’, ‘had’ mean in the past, in Edward the Confessor’s time (TRE in code), whereas ‘is’, ‘are’, ‘has’ mean now, TRW (Time of King William, i.e. 1086). Often ambiguous and confusing it may be, but still it tells us so many things we could not have otherwise known about our parish and England at that time–nothing compares with it for detail.

Especially it shows what William’s 1069-70 ‘Harrying of the North’ meant.
So in Bentley, which currently has 1039 acres, the Archbishop of York has 240 (2 carucates), and Count Mortain has 240, and there is woodland pasture of 480 (1 league by 4 furlongs), so all but 79 acres were usable for crops or stock pasture/hunting/firewood; rich land indeed. In Risby (now 972 acres) D.B. says A.of Y. has 720 acres, so 252 were unused. Hunsley (1037 acres) is most confusing, Bishop of Durham has 300, but it is waste, Hugh has 2 ploughs and 6 villagers with 2 ploughs in an area of 240 acres, but a plough has been assumed as 120 acres, so is the and correct? Nonetheless with at most 480 of 1037 acres in use it is quite clear that Hunsley, though populated, was largely unfarmed. Riplingham (about 1500acres) was part of Ferriby and is unvalued with 1 carucate and 2 bovates, or about 150 acres, so TRE this must have been almost totally unworked open land and waste TRW. Little Weighton (approx 1800 acres with Rowley now) on its own TRE had 630 acres (5 car. 2 bov.), but TRW Hugh son of Baldric has 240 acres and 16 villagers with 480 acres (4 ploughs), but it is 1 league square or 1440 acres, leaving at least 720 acres unaccounted for–presumably open land. There is no record of Rowley in D.B. but Little Weighton has a church and a priest; we can speculate that Rowley was part of L.W.

Equally illuminating is the D.B.’s pre-William and post-William valuations. TRE 20s (shillings) for Bentley and TRW 0s; TRE 40s for Little Weighton, TRW 50s (with Hunsley); no valuation for Riplingham and no TRW geld for Risby or Hunsley (church land was exempt) i.e. total of 50s after William for the whole parish!

I hope that a picture is emerging of the shape and use of our land, and of the effect of William’s 1069 ‘harrying’. We were not alone and our neighbours suffered similarly with nearly 40% of the East Riding settlements wasted. Some of the larger settlements fared better protected by the Archbishop of York Ealdred. Maybe Little Weighton having the rare distinction of a church and a priest and two mills of high geld value 16s swayed it for the parish?
Of my three questions, who everyone was and what happened next, are still unanswered. The clues are in the names of landowners, their effects on society, and the continuity of the power of the church through the Conquest–that is for the next part.


Big Thank You to Barrie Heaton for his historical articles.

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