The lesson to be learned from a careful tracing back of the customs of such a manor as Tidenham, and we might add also the methods of fishing, and the construction of the 'cyt' and 'hæcweras,' surely is, that in those early times changes in custom and habit were slow, and not easily made. It would be as unlikely that between the days of King Ceawlin and those of King Ine great changes should have been made in the internal economic structure of a Saxon manor, as that in the same period bees should have changed the shape of their hexagonal cells. [p160]

VII. SERFDOM ON A MANOR OF KING ALFRED.

Manor of Hysseburne, which had belonged to Egbert, Ethelwulf, and Alfred.

The second example of a Saxon manor is that of 'Stoke-by-Hysseburne,' a royal estate in Hampshire.[188] It had belonged in succession to King Egbert, King Ethelwulf, and King Alfred, and was by his son Edward given over to the monks of the 'old minster' at Winchester under the following curious circumstances.

King Alfred, towards the close of his reign, in his anxiety for the better education of the children of his nobles, called to his aid the monk Grimbald, from the monastery of St. Bertin, near St. Omer in Picardy, in which he himself had spent some time in his childhood on his way to Rome. It was the plan of Grimbald and King Alfred to build a new monastery (the 'new minster') at Winchester where Grimbald should carry out the royal object. But King Alfred died before this wish was fully accomplished. He had bought the land for the chapel and dormitory in [p161] the city, but the building and endowment of the monastery was left for his son King Edward to complete. Grimbald, then eighty-two years old, was the first abbot, but within a year died and was canonised. The body of King Alfred lay enshrined in Winchester Cathedral, in the 'old minster' of the bishop; but the canons of the old foundation having, according to the Abbey Chronicle, conceived 'delirious fancies' that the royal ghost, roaming by night about their cloisters, could not rest in peace, the remains of Alfred and his queen were removed to the 'new minster.' [189]

Granted to the 'old minster' at Winchester.

Now, King Ethelwolf, when dying, having left to King Alfred his son certain lands at 'Cyseldene' and elsewhere, with instructions when he died to give them over to the refectory of the old minster, King Alfred in his will gave his land at that place to the proper official at Winchester accordingly. In other words, the body of King Alfred lay in the 'new minster,' and this land given for the good of his soul belonged to the 'old minster.' So it came to pass—whether this time the 'delirious fancies' of the superstitious canons had anything to do with it or not cannot be told—that this property at Cyseldene, like the royal donor's body, could not rest in the hands of the 'old minster,' but must be transferred to the 'new minster.' So King Edward in the year 900 made an arrangement with the monks, whereby the lands at Cyseldene were transferred to the 'new minster,' and by charter he gave instead of them to the 'old minster' ten holdings (manentes) at [p162] Stoke-be-Hisseburne, with all the men who were thereon, and those at 'Hisseburne,' when King Alfred, died.

The 'hiwisc,' or family holding, equal here to yard-land.

It is in the charter[190] effecting this object that the services are described. 'Here are written the gerihta 'that the ceorls shall do at Hysseburne.' From every 'hiwisc' such and such services. The hiwisce or family holding seems from the services to have been a yard-land of 30 acres. The services were as follows:—

Services.