DOMESDAY SURVEY enters Leverton as having been held by Blacheman in fee and Chilton as held by him ' in alod ' of Harold ; in neither case is the abbey recognized as in previous possession. Another religious house appears to have lost a Berkshire manor ; this was the Old Minster of Winchester (i.e. the cathedral church). Domesday records that abbot ' Elsi ' had held Burghfield ' of the Old Minster ' in King Edward's time and afterwards until he was outlawed, according to the witness of the shire, though Ralf de Mortemer is found in possession at the time of the survey. Mr. Freeman devoted great attention to this remarkable abbot, whose ' whole life is wrapped in confusions and contradictions,' and whose ' real history is well nigh as marvellous as anything that legend could invent.' ' He duly mentioned the Burghfield entry, but missed the point of the abbot's tenure owing to his erroneous conclusion that the prelate's name was jfEthelsige. It was, on the contrary, ./Elfsige, and as such he appears in Domesday twice as abbot ' Elsi ' and once as abbot ' Alsi ' (Domesday equating these forms). We can thus discover him in that abbot 'Alsi' who in Hampshire had similarly held Barton in Bransbury of ' Stigand and the monks' of the Old Minster. 2 Originally a monk of the New Minster, he had been chosen abbot of St. Augustine's and had consented to receive benediction from Stigand at Windsor, 26 May 1061. He would thus be on excellent terms with Stigand, who dealt as seemed to him good with the manors of his monastery. It was thus that ^Elfsige would obtain the manors of Barton and Burghfield. From Edward the Confessor he afterwards obtained the abbey of Ramsey, and, as its abbot (or former abbot) appears in Domesday as a witness for the Old Minster in its dispute about Hayling Island. Mr. Freeman assigned his ' outlawry ' to the year 1 070. That Ralf de Mortemer should secure Burghfield is in harmony with what we find in Hampshire where we read of him holding manors which his predecessor had only held under the Old Minster. The substantially endowed churches on the King's demesne manors are a well-marked feature of Domesday. In this county the village priest had a glebe of a hide and a half at Windsor, and the two clerks of Thatcham church had twice that amount. So rich were the endow- ments on the great manor of Cholsey, that two village priests were drawing 4 a year from the church and tithes, although the abbey of Mont St. Michel had been there given a church worth, with its glebe, 3 a year. Basildon had two churches and priests, who held a hide between them ; at Shrivenham the priest held no less than five hides worth 4 ; and the glebe of Lambourn was one hide, and those of Little Coxwell and Bucklebury half a hide each. The holders of these livings are sometimes named, and among them we find as elsewhere foreign favourites. In accordance with a later practice bishop Osmund (of Salisbury) held Faringdon church, of which the hide of glebe was worth 2, while at Wantage William the deacon doubtless identical See Norman Conquest, vols. ii., iii., iv. Domesday, 41$. 299
