Page:VCH Derbyshire 1.djvu/406

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A HISTORY OF DERBYSHIRE to the supposition that the Derbyshire teamland had ever been a fiscal unit. 1 One difficult phrase, however, deserves attention here. At the end of the fief of Henry de Ferrers two entries occur which have the appearance in the manuscript of being somewhat later additions to the text. The first of these entries will be discussed later, the second relates to Edensor, where we read, ' Henry now has 4 carucates of land (assessed) to the geld and " totidem car' ad arandum." A good deal depends on the way in which we extend the compendium ' car' ' in this entry. If we render it as carucatarum we shall have an extremely rare reference in this part of England to the actual field carucates existing in the manor ; if we read carucarum we shall have a no less unusual phrase, which we must translate ' teams for ploughing.' On the whole the former seems the more natural rendering ; but the known habits of the Domesday scribes prove them to be quite capable of the tautology which would exist if the second reading were the true one. However, as in the account of the borough of Nottingham we read of ' vi caruc' terras ad arandum,' * where ' caruc,' must undoubtedly be extended as * carucatas,' we may use this phrase to illustrate our Edensor entry 8 and to support the first reading given above. It is therefore very interesting in this solitary reference to the ' real ' carucates existing on the land to find them identical in numbers with the fiscal carucates representing the assessment of the manor. It is impossible to read the Domesday account of Derbyshire without being struck by the enormous amount of land entered as ' waste.' No less than 10 per cent, of the total number of places mentioned in the county are entered with this significant phrase attached to them, and they are scattered so widely that nothing is to be learned from the study of their distribution. Much of this waste is probably due to the devastation of Derbyshire which we know to have taken place when King William put down the revolt of Stafford. We have, however, to remember that when a place is entered in Domesday as waste, this does not necessarily imply that its land was thrown entirely out of cultivation. In Derbyshire at least a devastated manor will commonly be credited with a small value, usually, of course, showing a large decline from that assigned to it for the time of King Edward. Thus taking a few instances : Value T.R.E. Value T.R.W. L ' d. ,. d. Tupton ...080 ..050 Totley . . . o 10 O Killamarsh . . 014 Willesley . . i o o Hartshorn . . 400 Barrow-on-Trent . o 13 4 Chellaston . . o 12 O Ravenstone . . O 15 o Donisthorpe . . 050 Oakthorpe . . 050 ' Trangesbi ' . 050 I o 010 0160 10 o o 200 300 1 o o 100 004 1 The difficult questions connected with the ploughland are discussed in Domesday Book and Beyond, p. 418 ff. 8 Fol. 280. 8 On the 'carucata ad arandum,' see Round, Domesday Studies, 199 ff. 318