DOMESDAY SURVEY Baiocensis.' This is an interesting example of that record's diversity of treatment. And Oxfordshire presents yet a third variety in the case of an estate at Baldon, similar to that at Shefford, which is placed under the fief of the bishop, but is held of him by Robert and Roger in two distinct moieties which are not even entered together. On the other hand Robert and Roger had extorted jointly from the abbot of Abing- don three hides on his Oxfordshire manors, 1 and are duly entered as their joint tenants, under his fief, in Domesday (fo. 156^). Robert's great position in Oxfordshire and office as constable of Oxford castle made him a formidable neighbour to the abbot, but he repented at the last and found burial within the abbey walls. A somewhat curious feature of the Berkshire survey is the number of great barons who held but one manor in the county ; there are at least ten of them, while others hold only two or three manors apiece. Among the smaller men one may note Aiulf the sheriff (of Dorset) and his brother Humphrey the chamberlain, the latter of whom had been advanced in the service of the Conqueror's Queen. Of Turstin Fitz Rou the predecessor, in all his Berkshire lands, was Brihtric, an English thegn, whom he had also succeeded in some of his Hampshire, Buck- inghamshire, Gloucestershire, and Herefordshire estates. Reimbald of Cirencester, King Edward's chancellor, retained the estate at East Hagbourne which he had held of that sovereign, and had acquired another at Aston. He was the wealthy pluralist who held so many of the Crown livings, 2 including those of Cookham and of Bray in this county. With him we may class his fellow-clerk, Albert (of Lotharin- gia), 3 who appears as tenant-in-chief of a small estate at Ded worth, which had belonged to King Edward's chamberlain, besides holding some land at Windsor, which points to his attendance at court. The Berkshire survey, towards the end of the list of tenants-in- chief, affords a good illustration of Domesday's want of system in deal- ing with the King's Serjeants and minor officers. For the same man will in one county be separately entered as a tenant-in-chief, and in another be relegated to the group of thegns or Serjeants found at the end of the survey. Hugh the steersman, who may have been a serjeant, held that manor of Hampstead (Marshall), the tenure of which was in later days supposed to carry the marshalship of England. The appear- ance of Bernard the falconer suggests hawking on the Berkshire downs. The goldsmiths however are in this county the most interesting of the King's dependents. One may here quote Mr. Freeman's words : And with these we find the name of a man of unrecorded nationality, who doubt- less owed the favour of William to his skill in an art specially adapted to enhance the splendour of a King's court, an art for which both natives and sojourners in England were specially famous. Five Berkshire estates, four of which had been the property of an Englishman named Eadward, had passed into the hands of Theodoric the gold- smith. He was doubtless one of those craftsmen from the Teutonic mainland whose presence in England had been encouraged by a constant tradition going back at least i Abingdon Chron. (Rolls Ser.), ii. 25. a Feudal England, pp. 421-6. 3 See The Commune of London, pp. 36-8. 291
