Page:Domesday Book Illustrated.pdf/33

 The orthography also of places in Domesday frequently varies from what we find them described by in records soon after the Conquest, and their present appellation, so that it is with difficulty the real places can often be made out; but probably this does not arise from the scribes or clerks who took down the names being Normans, and those who gave in the information being Saxons, as some have imagined; but, from the names being since that time much corrupted and falsely spelt, the names of towns, as they are found in the Survey, being, in the opinion of some, the real, true, and old names, as they were in the time of Edward the Confessor; and might be taken from Alfred's Domesday, which was at that time extant.

Dugdale observes, that although the Survey here and there takes notice of a church in Warwickshire being in such a vill, there were many more at that time which were not set down.

This description is very conformable to the following articles of inquiry given us by Mr. Selden, from an antient manuscript. Seld. Præf. de Ead- meri editione, p. 15. "Hic subscribitur inquisitio terrarum, quomodo barones regis inquirunt; viz. per sacramentum vicecomitis sciræ, & omnium baronum & eorum Francigenarum, & totius Rh