this earliest period it participated in the benefits of Roman colonization; it does not however appear that any remains have been hitherto discovered on the spot to bear out this as a certainty, and we must content ourselves by taking up its history at the Conqueror's survey.
At that time Œctune, (or the oak town,) whose significant title at once evidences its antiquity, was held by Rainald the Sheriff, who held it under Earl Roger. Odo held it under Rainald; Gheri possessed it previously; he could bequeath it or sell it. There were three hides of land paying geld: in demesne one carucate, three slaves, four villeins with one carucate, and a wood for fattening twenty swine. At the time of King Edward it was worth twenty shillings, and afterwards twelve; now thirteen shillings and fourpence[1].
The next account found of it is in the Testa de Nevill, where Will, and Gerain Burnell are possessed of half a fee at Acton[2]. A passage in the Hundred Rolls, to which, like the preceding one, it is difficult to assign a precise date[3], but evidently referable to the reign of Henry III., mentions Robert Burnell and Hugh de Becbury as holding it as three hides in fee from Thomas Corbet. An entry on the Patent Rolls of 50 Henry III., (1265,) states that the king remits to Robert Burnell, clerk of Edward his eldest son, and to his tenants of the manor of Langley, fifteen shillings, which he and his tenants had been used to pay annually for certain lands reduced into cultivation in the woods of the manors of Langley, Rokkeley, Howhales, and Acton Burnell, within the forest of Salop[4]. In the fifty-fourth of his reign (1269) he pardons him the transgression which he had committed in enclosing forty acres of his land and waste at Acton Burnell, without royal licence, within the park which the king had given him permission to make of his wood at Cumbes within the forest of Salop[5]. He also grants him a market on Tuesday in every week at his manor of Acton Burnell, and two fairs there, one on the eve, the day, and the morrow of the Annunciation of the Virgin, the other on the eve, and the day and the morrow of St. Michael: also free warren in all his demesne lands in Acton Burnell[6]. This free warren was confirmed 8th of
