NOTE The reader should bear in mind throughout that the date of the Domesday Survey is 1086 ; that the 'time of King Edward' [T.R.E.], to which it refers, normally means the date of his death (5 January 1066); and that the intermediate date, which is sometimes spoken of as * afterwards ' and sometimes as * when received,' is that at which the estate passed into the hands of the new holder. When the word semper (always) is used, it means that the figures were the same in 1086 as in 1066. The Domesday ' hide ' was a unit of assessment divided into four 'virgates.' Where the land had not been so assessed to the (Dane)geld, or land-tax, it is entered as 'carucates of land.' The 'hide' and ' virgate,' it must be remembered, were fiscal, not areal, measures. The ' demesne ' of a manor denotes that portion which the holder (whether a tenant-in-chief or only an under-tenant), or his representative, worked as a home farm with the assistance of labour due from the peasants who held the rest of the manor from him. The classes of the holders of lands and peasantry are discussed in the introduction. The essential element of the plough (caruca) was its team of oxen, always reckoned in Domesday as eight in number. The phrases that a holder of land had the right to leave (recedere) his lord or to go where he would [ire quo volebat) have the same meaning and denote that he was free to commend himself to another lord. It is necessary to remember that when Domesday speaks of a place as held by a certain tenant, it does not follow that the whole of it is meant. It may have comprised other manors, which form the subject of separate entries. For notes to which ' (J. H. R.) ' is appended Mr. Round is responsible. Identifications kindly contributed by Mr. J. G. Wood, F.S.A., are denoted by ' (J. G. W.).' 308
