Page:Notes on the churches in the counties of Kent, Sussex, and Surrey.djvu/16

vi should begin with a K, does not in Domesday Book commence with Ch; thus Kent is written Chenth. The same substitution is found in the middle of words.

How extremely minute, and indeed inquisitorial, was the Domesday Survey will appear from extracts occasionally given in the Notes; and the following notice of the work in the Saxon Chronicle will show the opinion formed of William's proceeding by his contemporaries, or those nearly such. "After these things AD. 1085, the king held a great council, and had solemn conferences with his nobles of this land, how it was inhabited, and by what men. He sent therefore through all England, into every county, his men, who were to inquire how many hundred hides were in each county, and what land and stock the king possessed in the same; and what annual tribute he ought to receive from that county. He required also to be described how much land his archbishops, and diocesan bishops, and his abbots, and his earls held; and, not to be tedious, what and how much every possessor of land in England owned of either land or stock, and what was the value thereof. So diligently did he direct the county to be examined, that there should not be a single hide or virgate of land, nor even (which is a shame to say, but he did not consider it shameful to do) ox, or cow, or hog passed over, which he should not bring under tax: and everything, when inserted in writing, was brought to him." (Gibsoni Chronicon Saxonicum, 186.) (Gibson gives a literal Latin translation, with which alone I pretend to be familiar.) Possibly William's motive for this inquiry may be in some measure explained by what had happened immediately before, when, as we are informed by the Saxon Chronicle, in consequence of a strong report that Canute king of Denmark meditated an attempt to subdue this country with the assistance of Robert Count of Flanders, William had collected from both England and Normandy an army more numerous than ever before seen; which he had distributed among his English subjects, to be supported according to the quantity of land, held by each individual; to the great detriment of those, upon whom the soldiers were thus quartered.

With regard to the churches, described in the Survey of A.D. 1086, the following list will show that they were by no means all what would now be called "parish churches." Spelman says, in his Glossary, that the title "parish," paroichia, was