THE DOMESDAY SURVEY Our record however states definitely that in King Edward's time ' the third penny of the pleas of the shire ' was held with Earl Eadwine's manor of 'Cotes' 1 (near Warwick). And this Warwickshire evidence is con- firmed by that for Dorset, where the earldom had been held by Harold, to whose manor of ' Piretone ' (Puddletown) there was similarly annexed the third penny of the pleas of the shire. 1 These two entries are sufficient to establish the fact that the institution of the earl's ' third penny ' of the shire was older than the Norman Conquest. The rights of Earl Eadwine in the borough of Warwick, which had similarly passed to William, will be dealt with under Warwick itself, but one may here note that of his manors the Conqueror kept in his hands Brailes, Coton and Sutton (Coldfield) , while scattering ' Ulverlei,' Budbrooke, Erdington, Aston, Myton and Bedworth among half a dozen tenants-in- chief. Considerable as had been the earl's estates those of his house had been larger still ; manors at Ipsley and Aston Cantlow had been held by his father ./Elfgar, while his grandfather Leofric had denuded himself of sundry rich lordships in favour of his great foundation at Coventry. Domesday again records as the land of the Countess Godiva (Leofric's widow) manors at Alspath, Atherstone, Coventry itself and other places. The curious statement found under Oxfordshire that ' from the land of Earl Eadwine in Oxfordshire and Warwickshire the king has >C IO 5>' 3 appears to be irreconcilable with the detailed valuations of his manors in those two counties. To the revenue derived from the lands entered under Terra Re<ris o we must add, at the time of the Survey, the ' farm ' of the manors which Earl Aubrey and Countess 'Godiva' had held, and which had now escheated to the Crown. 4 The first manor, also, entered under Hugh de Grentmesnil is described as held by him ' de rege in custodia,' just as the manors of Earl Aubrey were held by Geoffrey ' de Wirce.' It is well worthy of notice that Domesday thus pointedly distinguishes escheated fiefs from those forfeited manors of the local earl which had passed into the perma- nent possession of the Crown. For it may have been even then, as it was later, recognized that escheats should not be retained, but be granted out anew. Of ecclesiastical tenants-in-chief two bishops held lands within the borders of the county in their official capacity. These were a Norman prelate, Peter, Bishop of Chester, who had removed his episcopal seat thither from Lichfield, and who held, in right of the latter church, Bishop's Tachbrook in this county, and Wulfstan, the native Bishop of Worcester, the great possessions of whose see extended from Worcester- shire into Warwickshire. 6 His rival also, the abbot of Evesham, held 1 Hoc terra cum burgo de Warwic et tercio denario placitorum sirae reddebat T.R.E. xvii. libras." ' Huic etiam manerio Piretone adjacet tercius denarius de tola scira Dorsete. Redd' cum omnibus appendiciis Ixxiii libras' (fo. 75). ' De terra Edwini comitis in Oxenef et in Warwicscire habet rex c lib. et c solid' ' (fo. 154). See p. 276 below. Bishop Wulfstan's manor of Alveston is dealt with on p. 287 below. i 273 35
