THE DOMESDAY SURVEY places being all in Worcestershire. Now the Beauchamps were the heirs of the sheriff Urse, and the exceptionally large number of their fees is accounted for at once, on turning to Domesday, by the numerous cases in which the sheriff had obtained, as under-tenant, the Bishop's lands.^ The important conclusion to be drawn from this is that the church of Worcester obtained a quid pro quo from Urse. If it had to give him, as under-tenant, the beneficial occupation of much of its land, he had, in return, to discharge a quarter of the knight-service exacted from it by the Norman kings. The Henry I. survey of the lands of the church of Worcester shows us Walter de Beauchamp holding loo hides in Oswaldslow and 5 or 6 outside it.* A quota of fifteen knights towards the ' service ' for which the church was liable was a fairly substantial return for such tenure. The second point that calls for notice is the curious appearance of the King himself as owing knight-service to the church of Worcester. The list of the Bishop's knights in 1166 opens with the words ' (Our) lord the king owes 3 knights.' Here again we find the explanation in the evidence of Domesday Book combined with that of the survey taken under John. The latter return explains that the knights' (fees) in the King's hands ^ are in ' Burleg, Queinhull, et in Broc,' and Domesday shows us ' Burgelege ' and ' Cunhille ' as then (1086) ' in manu regis ' (fo. 173).* The very important inference which I draw from this evidence is that the amount of ' knight-service ' due from the see must have been fixed before Domesday, and these lands already reckoned as three knights' fees before they came into the King's hands. The in- ference is subtle, but it seems to be sound. The other religious houses holding land in Worcestershire do not call for such elaborate discussion as the Bishop's own monastery. Ac- cording to Domesday (fos. 1741^, 175), the great estate which Edward the Confessor had bestowed on his new abbey at Westminster, and which was counted as 200 hides (one-sixth of the county), was all appurtenant to the manor of Pershore then in his own hands. Pershore Abbey, however, had certain rights over all of it,^ and Domesday, having told us, under Westminster Abbey, that the manor of Pershore had been held by Edward, enters next the Pershore fief, and heads it by the statement that Pershore Abbey ' held and holds the manor of Pershore.' Here, therefore, there must have been friction, as there was, we have seen, between Worcester and Evesham. It is singular that Westminster should have been given so great an estate in the West of England as these 200 hides in Worcestershire and the 59 hides of the great manor of Deerhurst
- His brother, Robert the Despencer, had acquired a few, but those inherited from him
by the Beauchamps were comparatively insignificant. ^ Feudal England, pp. 173-4, and p. 325 below. ^ The Testa de Nevill erroneously gives them as ' vii.,' but the Pipe Rolls prove that they were three.
- The third manor entered in Domesday as then ' in manu regis ' is not ' Broc,' but
- Biselie' (Bushley). * See p. 251 above.
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