DOMESDAY SURVEY The King's demesne, p. 285. Assessment of the county, p. 286. Church lands,p. 288. Barons' lands,p. 288. The Serjeants and the English thegns,p. 291. Former landowners, p. 293. The foreign knights, p. 296. Spoliation of abbeys, p. 298. Churches and priests,p. 299. Parishes and manors, p. 301. Agriculture and mills, p. 302. Fisheries, p. 304. Dairy farming and meadows, p. 305. Swine and the woodlands, p. 308. The towns, p. 310. Legal antiquities and customs, p. 314. The county borders, p. 318. I the interest and importance of the Berkshire portion of the Conqueror's great survey Mr. Freeman bore striking witness when he selected it for special treatment as typifying the effect of the Conquest on this country in practice. 1 He analysed its evidence so fully that in dealing with the subject one is forced to traverse, to some extent, his footsteps. There was, however, an external reason for this choice of Berkshire, namely the existence of that chronicle of the local Abbey of Abingdon, which helps us to illustrate the Domesday text, and which is specially rich in that personal detail that Mr. Freeman valued most of all. 3 But the interest of the survey is by no means confined to those features which to him proved the most attractive ; the long account of the borough of Wallingford and the very important entry on the local institutions of Berkshire would alone afford material for lengthy disquisition. The great extent of the Conqueror's own manors in the county and the fact that it contained at Windsor his new fortified residence already entitled it to claim the epithet of ' royal.' Six columns of Domesday Book are devoted to a survey of the lands which William held in his own hands, the royal demesne having evidently been, even before the Conquest, very extensive in the county. King Edward him- self was the predecessor in some eighteen instances of his Norman successor, and his relict, Queen Edith, in five others. The old Crown manors, moreover, were mostly large and important ; Cookham, Lam- bourn, and Old Windsor were each assessed at twenty hides ; Cholsey and Sutton Courtenay at more than twenty each ; Shrivenham at forty-six, and Reading at forty-three, in addition to which William held the borough of Reading in demesne. Nor was assessment always an indication of their value; Blewberry and Wantage, at the time of
- Norman Conquest (1871), iv. 32-47, 728-736.
2 ' This district is one of those in which the Commissioners employed on William's Survey have been most bountiful in local and personal notices, while in some parts of England they give us little beyond dry lists of names. We are also able to draw a good deal of help from the detailed history ... of Saint Mary of Abingdon. By these means we are able to call up a personal image of several men in the days of Edward, Harold and William of some of whom we have heard already ' (Ibid. p. 32). 285
