DOMESDAY SURVEY and the range of the Black Mountains were an ever-present temptation to the Welsh, and it was but thirty years since Hereford itself had been sacked by Griffith and his host/ It was, again, less than twenty since Eadric ' the wild,' the Hereward of the West,' had burst upon the county with his Welsh alUes and swept it clear of plunder to the very banks of the Lugg.* Here- ford itself had been all but submerged in the fierce flood of the invasion. We have to remember these things when reading of the ' waste ' manors which were so terrible a feature of the Welsh March.' There was wild woodland at the time of Domesday where the plough had once been sped.i" The Domesday Survey of the county cannot be studied or understood without some knowledge of the political history, the ecclesiastical history, and the physical geography of the March. It will be well to start from that record of singularly early date, which sets forth the cantreds of Wales and of which the Red Book of the Exchequer preserves a corrupt version. We there read ' Talegard, Hereging, Ewias, Strediu, j cantref.'" At the time, then, when this record was compiled, Archenfield,^^ with its ' two sleeves ' of Ewias and Ystrady w," formed with Talgarth ^* a Welsh cantred. The first two appear in Domesday as politically part of Herefordshire, but they were still ecclesiastically in the diocese of Llandaff, though Archenfield was secured in the next century by the bishop of Hereford, while the bishop of St. David's obtained possession of Ewias, in which diocese, indeed, it remained till 1852. The hilly character of both districts favoured the persistence of Welsh influences, and the valley between them leading to Abergavenny was a highway of invasion from South Wales. From Domesday's curious statement that Earl William had r^'-fortified the castle of Ewyas (Harold) it may probably be gathered that this stronghold had been raised under the Confessor to keep the district in check, but had been stormed and dismantled by Welsh invaders when they also ravaged Archenfield. For the limits of Ewias we are virtually dependent on ecclesiastical boundaries, but I think it can be shown that the evidence of Domesday con- firms these boundaries in very remarkable fashion. Ecclesiastically, Ewias consisted of the south-western corner of the county between the Black Mountains and ' The Golden Valley ' of the Dore, together with a strip beyond the mountains, of which the valley of the Honddy is now in Mon- mouthshire,^^ while a slip beyond it belongs to Herefordshire. But it was not actually bordered by the Dore river, except at Ewyas Harold, its south- eastern portion. Now, when we turn to Domesday we find a district styled ' In valle Stradelei ' (and once ' Stradel Hundret,') ^* which proves to be the ^ 'Rex Grifin et Blein vastavcrunt hanc terrain T.R.E.' says Domesday of Archenfield. The Annales Cambriae record that Grifin 'Herefordiam vastavit.' ' He appears in the Herefordshire Domesday as Edric ' Salvage,' the predecessor of Ralph de Mortimer in several manors in the north of the county.
- ' Herefordensem provinciam usque ad pontem amnis Luege devastavit ingentemque pracdam reduxit ' ;
Flor. Wore. Chron. (Engl. Hist. Soc), ii, z. ' ' Wasta fuit et est . . . in Marcha de Walls.' '» See below. " Red Bk. of the Exch. (Rolls Ser.), 761. " Originally ' Ergyng,' " Crickhowell in South Brecon. " In North Brecon. " The Lacys of Ewyas Lacy must have held the valley of the Honddy on its west side when they founded there the house of Llanthony. " The name is preserved in Monnington Stradel and Stradel Bridge on the east side of the river. I 265 34
