There can be little doubt but that William's ravages were not only done systematically, but were done with a fixed and politic purpose (p. 413) ... there can be little doubt that they were systematic ravages done with the settled object of bringing Harold to a battle (p. 741).

Possibly the writer had in his mind the harrying of the lands of the Athenians, as described in the pages of Thucydides: but how can it have been politic for William, not only to provoke Harold, but to outrage the English people? It was Harold with whom his quarrel lay; and as to those he hoped to make his future subjects, to ravage their lands wilfully and wantonly was scarcely the way to commend himself to their favour: it would rather impel them, in dread of his ways, to resist his dominion to the death.

But if William's policy be matter of question, Domesday at least is matter of fact; and Mr Freeman's followers cannot be surprised at the opposition he provoked, when we find him thus ridiculing a student for a charge he never made, and proved to have himself erred from his careless reading of Domesday.

I now append an analysis of the roll, showing the proportion of land 'gewered',[8] of 'inland', of terra regis, of land which had not paid (in square brackets), and of 'waste'. The totals in square brackets are those given in the document; the others are those actually accounted for.

InlandTerra RegisWasteTotal
Sutton21⅔4010 28⅓100[100]
Warden17¾40 41¼99[99]
Cleyley1840 42100[100]
Gravesend18½355 41½100[100]
'Eadbolds Stow'23½455 26½100[100]
'Ailwardsley'16½40 [6½]37100[100]
Foxley 163021 33100[100]
Wyceste19[9 ]4020 21100[100]
Huxlow815 3962[62]
Willybrook71131 1362[62]
Upton Green5027 [3½]29½[10 ]110[109]
Neuesland[80½][11]59 [8]12½ [160]
Navisford1514 3362[62]
Polebrook1020 3262[62]
Newbottlegrove44⅞72 33⅛150[150]
Gilsborough1668 66150[150]
Spelho20½ [Borough 25][16]28½90[90]
Wiceslea W.1040 3080[80]
Wiceslea E.1534 3180[80]
'Stotfald'9⅛40 50⅛99¼[100]
Stoke18[10] 12 [40]
Higham49½44 56149½[150]
'Malesley'12308 3080[80]
Corby8½12¼12¼[?4]10¾47¾[47]
Rothwell10207½[7½] 45[12][60]
'Andwertheshoe'[?26][13]25 39 [90]
Ordlingbury29½24½ 2180[80]
'Wimersley'4160 49150[150]

The persons mentioned as not having paid can in most cases be identified. Thus 'Robert the Earl's wife' is one of those in Rothwell Hundred, whose land was 'unwered'. This was clearly Maud, wife of Count Robert of Mortain, who had been given lands by her father, Roger of Montgomery, at Harrington in this Hundred. Domesday, it is true, where it figures as 'Arintone', knows it only as 'Terra æcclesiæ de Grestain' (222 b); but a charter of Richard I (per Inspeximus) confirms to the Abbey 'ex dono Matildis Comitisse Moreton ... xxxii. hidas terre quas dederat ei pater suus Rogerus de Montegomerico, scilicet apud Haxintonam [sic] viii. hidas, etc.'[14] As the lands had first been given to Roger, then by him to his daughter, and, finally, by her to the Abbey, I cannot think our document earlier, at any rate, than 1068. Edith, whose name proves it not to be later than 1075, is entered as 'the lady, the King's wife', holding eight hides in Neuesland Hundred, and again as a holder in Rothwell Hundred, under the name of 'the King's wife'. Both entries, doubtless, refer to her wide-spreading Manor of 'Tingdene' (i. 222), parts of which lay in both the above Hundreds. Of the other holders we may notice 'Urs' (? Urse d'Abetot), and 'Witeget the priest'; but these are quite eclipsed by Richard and William Engaine, of whom the former occurs twice and the latter thrice on the roll. In Spelho Hundred 'Richard' seems to be credited with ten hides at 'Habintune' on which 'nan peni' had been paid. In Domesday his holding at Abintone is given as four hides (i. 229). In the same Hundred, William's land at 'Multune' is in default. Moulton is not entered under his fief in Domesday, but under that of Robert de Buci we find a 'William' holding of him a hide and a virgate and a half in Moulton. This was William Engaine, as was the 'William' of our roll; and in the Hen. I-Hen. II survey,[15] we find land in Moulton entered as of Engaine's fee. Still more interesting is it to note that so late as 25 Ed. I. more than two centuries after Domesday, John Engayne is found holding half a fee in Moulton of Ralf Basset, and Basset of the King in capite. For, as our Leicestershire survey shows,[16] the Domesday fief of Robert de Buci had passed to Basset, of whose heir, therefore, Engayne held, as his ancestor had held of Robert de Buci, in the days of William the Conqueror.

It is particularly instructive to follow out the Northamptonshire fief of William Engaine. In Domesday (i. 229) he is entered only as 'Willelmus' holding 3½ hides in Pytchley (Piteslea), and Laxton (Lastone), worth at that time, £3 10s. 'Vitalis' Engaine was his heir in 1130, for the Pipe-Roll of 31 Hen. I (p. 82) records his discharge of a debt to the crown 'ut rehabeat terram suam de Laxetona'. And this is confirmed by the survey of 1125 in the Liber Niger of Peterborough, where we read under 'Pihtesle' (p. 162): 'Et Vitalis reddit iii. solidos pro i. virga', this being the 'i. virga' assigned to him in the list of Peterborough knights (Ibid., p. 169). The 'Rotulus de Dominabus' (1185) shows us the 'Piteslea' estate in the hands of Margaret Engaine, makes it worth £6, and mentions that her heir was Richard Engaine (p. 14). The 'Testa de Nevill' (p. 37) enters Richard 'de Angayne' as holding five carucates of land in 'Pettesle' and 'Laxeton' worth £6 a year. It tells us, further, that he held them by serjeanty—'et est venator leporum, et facit servitium'. From the nature of this return I assign it to the inquest of 1198, in which case it is of some value, as identifying five carucates under the new assessment with the 3½ hides recorded in Domesday.[17] Fulc de Lisures, on the other hand—the heir of the Richard Engaine of Domesday—returned himself in 1166, as the King's forester in fee and attending the King's person, with his horn hanging from his neck.[18]

The association of Pytchley with hunting is carried back even further still. For Richard and William Engaine had for their predecessor in title, Ælfwine the huntsman ('venator'), who owned their lands when King Edward sat upon the throne.

Among the lands deducted we observe in Spelho Hundred 'fif and xx. hida byrigland'. This represents the assessment in hides of the Borough of Northampton, and, so far as I know, is the only mention of that assessment to be found. In my paper on 'Danegeld and the Finance of Domesday', I pointed out that Bridport and Malmesbury were assessed at five hides each, Dorchester, Wareham, and Hertford at ten hides, Worcester at fifteen, Bath and Shaftesbury at twenty, etc.[19] Northampton (we now see) was assessed in the same manner, and Chester and Huntingdon at no less than fifty hides each. Thus they admirably illustrate assessment in terms of the five-hide unit. We find this primitive system obsolete in 1130, when a borough gave an 'auxilium' where its county paid Danegeld. But our roll implies that, here at least, it was already obsolete in the early days of the Conquest; for the twenty-five hides of 'byrigland' are, for the payment of 'geld', deducted from the Hundred.

From the date I have assigned to this document (ante-1075), it may fairly claim to represent our earliest financial record. Its illustrative value for Danegeld and the Hundred, and consequently for Domesday Book, will be obvious to every student.