THE DOMESDAY SURVEY transfer of lands that followed the Norman Conquest. 1 The eastern counties, he held, ' were precisely the parts of England which had come into William's hands without effort or resistance,' and to which therefore he showed himself ' mild and debonair ' ; * and yet in Essex the transfer of land was for all purposes complete. Every Englishman, small or great, who held his land ' freely ' seems to have forfeited its possession. 3 One does not see how this could have been, as Mr. Freeman seems to have held, the result of individual forfeitures incurred by definite acts. The loss may not have followed immediately on William's triumph ; indeed there are cases in which the Survey shows that it did not ; but undoubtedly the impression conveyed by Domesday in this county is that all Englishmen were held to have forfeited, as such, their lands. It affords us at least one very suggestive case of an Englishman, whose lands had been taken from him, being actually employed by the Crown in a position of trust. ALlfric ' Wand ' or ' Wants,' whose estate at Arkesden and Radwinter had been secured by ' Eudo dapifer,' is found in Suffolk placed in charge of a number of Crown manors as reeve (prepositus) . English reeves or foresters were useful, on account of their experience and knowledge, to the Normans ; and in Essex we find Richard Fitz Gilbert employing two English reeves who are charged with aggression on his behalf, and whom he seems to have left to their fate. 4 Grim, another English reeve, had taken advantage of his official position to obtain possession of forfeited estates at Bowers (Gifford) and Chadwell 8 ; and one fortunate officer of the king, with the typically English name of Godric, was ' farming ' royal manors on a great scale in Norfolk and Suffolk (fos. 1196, 284^), besides holding lands as a tenant-in-chief in both those counties. His ' farming ' operations extended to Essex, where we find him, as Godric dapifer^ in charge of Great Sampford. Mr. Freeman observed that in some cases the widows of English landowners were allowed, as a favour, to hold some portion of their husbands' estates. With the widow of ' Phin the Dane ' we have already dealt ; her two manors are imme- diately followed by the small holding of ' Edeva the widow of Edward son of Suan ' in the Hundred of Chafford. The interest of this entry is that it bears directly on the Middlesex manor of ' Lilestone," which Domesday speaks of as held * in almoin ' by ' Eideva,' and as having been held by Edward son of Suan. The Essex entry proves that ' Eideva ' must have been his widow. The case of Modwine, who had lost his land at (East) Donyland, but who was holding in 1086 a smaller property in the same vill and several other estates of moderate size in addition, may illustrate the practice (as I think it) of making even the Englishman who was still a landowner hold, from the Conquest, 1 See Norman Conquest (1871), iv. 14-15, 22-27. * Ibid. pp. 26, 29. 8 A small holding in Tot ham was retained by ' Gunner,' but only as an under-tenant of that great baron, Suain. There are a few other cases of the same kind. 1 See p. 573 below. One of these cases is the subject of a duplicate entry. * See p. 564 below.
- Domesday i. I 30^. The name is still preserved in Lisson Grove. The manor was held in the
time of John by the heirs of Otho the goldsmith. 355
