THE DOMESDAY SURVEY portance in the early history of Worcestershire, it is impossible to pass it by without some discussion. Professor Maitland bases his conclusion on the fact that ' In 1086 the church of Worcester had to all appearance just those rights which th.& A Ititonatitis^ professed to grant to her; already they were associated with the name of Oswald ; already they were re- garded as ancient privileges.' Urging with much force that ' kings and sheriffs did not permit themselves to be cheated wholesale out of valuable rights,' he accepts the witness of Domesday to the antiquity of the church's rights and connects it with the story that they had been granted to St. Oswald, when bishop, by Edgar.^ That the charter in its present form cannot possibly be genuine is, one must repeat, admitted. But does it, as in some similar instances, ' tell a story that in the main is true ' ? On the whole, there does not seem to be sufficient cause for rejecting this conclusion. The stress laid by the alleged charter on the monks' exclusive rights over one of the three hundreds of which Oswaldslow was composed is, no doubt, some- what suspicious in the light of the Domesday entry ; and if the document were strictly interpreted, its wording would certainly exempt from Danegeld the whole 300 hides, although we do not find them so exempt in Domesday. But there might well be alterations. It is, however, a singular fact, revealed on close scrutiny, that the lands which Edgar is represented as adding to the 50 hides at Cropthorne in order to make ' a perfect hundred ' out of the monks' estates, do not, as Professor Maitland imagined, amount to just 50 hides,^ but comprise 20 hides more, as we learn from other sources.* But, although the calculation works out wrong in detail, the broad fact remains that the triple Hun- dred of Oswaldslow did contain exactly 300 hides ; and, remembering that the monastery had other manors up and down the county, I consider the existence of such a ' Hundred ' proof that some king did erect a triple Hundred out of its Worcestershire manors by taking for the purpose as many as amounted, in assessed totals, to 300 hides, and leaving the rest outside it. I cannot quite agree with Mr. Maitland that ' this triple Hundred of Oswaldslow was made up,' according to the charter, ' of three old Hundreds, called Cuthbertslaw, Wulfhereslaw, and Wimborntree ' ; ^ for, as I read it, what was done was rather to rearrange the Hundreds — just as Domesday shows us the Hundred of Fishborough * rearranged — so as to assign to the monastery the above
- The opening word of Edgar's charter is here used as its title.
- Domesday Book and Beyond^ p. 269.
^ I hid. p. 452.
- At Teddington 3, Mitton i, Blackwell 2, Icomb i, these 7 hides being theirs
still in lo86 ; at Daylesford 3, and Evenlode 5, these 8 hides being entered as formerly theirs in Domesday ; and at Dome in Blockley (as we gather from Heming's Cartulary, p. 304) 5. The total, therefore, with these 20 hides added, would be, not 50, but 70 hides.
- Domesday Book and Beyond, pp. 268, 452.
- 'In Fissesberge Hundret habet aecclesia de Evesham Ixv hidas. ... In illo
Hundret jacent xx hidae de Dodentreu, et xv hidae de Wirecestre perficiunt hundret.' The 247
