THE DOMESDAY SURVEY When the forfeiture of the earl's son and successor (1074) placed all his lands at the disposition of the Crown, it confirmed his endowments to his two abbeys, and commuted the tithes of Martley and Suckley for seventy-five shillings a year (as stated in the charter cited in the foot- note), which sum, accordingly, is found on the 12th century Pipe Rolls, allowed year by year to the sheriff of Worcestershire. And even in 'the hundred years' war' we find the Crown impounding, as held for the benefit of aliens, endowments originally bestowed by earl William Fitz Osbern.* This is hardly the place to discuss the Earl's aggressions on the manors belonging to the monks of Worcester or those that were laid to the charge of his satellites, Gilbert Fitz Turold and Ralf de Bernai,^ but attention may be drawn to the fact that his lands were mostly near the Herefordshire border.' His possession, however, of Feckenham as well as Hanley (Castle) suggests that he had an eye to the hunting in Feckenham Forest as in Malvern Chase. We have now examined some of the causes which either modified the limits of the shire or accounted for the survey of part of it under another county. In spite, however, of these influences, and of the fact that, as we shall see below, he miscalculated altogether the assessment of Droitwich, Professor Maitland's remarkable conclusions are not materially affected, and Worcestershire remains, in the light of his results, one of the most instructive counties in England for the study of assessment and taxation in Anglo-Saxon times. It was chiefly, we saw at the outset, as a record of assessment for taxation that Domesday Book was compiled. But of great importance also to the Crown was the evidence it afforded on the pecuniary rights, apart from taxation, to which the King was entitled. In the rural districts these were derived from the profits of jurisdiction and from his own lands ; in the towns their sources were more complex. The system of composition under which these rights were ' farmed ' was obviously one that needed enquiry, with a view to revision, from time to time. The importance of the Worcestershire evidence, on this subject, in Domes- day is that it enables us to trace, on the one hand, the beginnings of that composition for the royal rights in a county which was known as the firma comitatus^ and that it indicates, on the other, the sources of certain payments which are found elsewhere in the Survey with no clue to their origin. Taking these points in order, we learn that the sheriff, at the time of Domesday, was paying annually a lump sum of ^(^123 s. ' by weight ' {ad pensuni) ' from the demesne manors of the King.' This sum was the nucleus of x}slX. Jirma comitatus which seems, in 1160 (6 1,077). Allusions to these endowments, and those of Lyre, will be found in the Domesday text below, under the several localities. ' The monks of Cormeilles sold their tithes at HoUoway to Bordesley Abbey for six and eightpence a year (Madox's Formulare, p. 300).
- Sheriff of Herefordshire under the Earl.
Martley, Suckley, Eldersfield, and Hanley (Castle). I 241 H
