Page:VCH Bedfordshire 1.djvu/270

 A HISTORY OF BEDFORDSHIRE that county with no hint of its peculiar position further illustrates the character of the survey as essentially a record of assessment for geld. Westoning, supposed by Mr. Airy to be unmentioned in Domes- day, is surveyed under Hertfordshire as ' Westone,' the survey expressly recording that its assessment belonged to Bedfordshire. 1 Wrestlingworth, he asserted, was surveyed under Cambridgeshire ; but ' Warateworde,' to which he referred, proves to be Wratsworth in Orwell. As Wrestling- worth was held of the Honour of Huntingdon, it must be sought for among the manors of the Countess Judith in Domesday. As illustrating the great uncertainty surrounding the identity even of important manors in the Bedfordshire survey one may instance the ' Lalega ' of Domesday, which lay in the Hundred of Willey and was divided between four of the local tenants-in-chief. This was certainly the manor of ' La Leye,' as it is styled in the Hundred Rolls, the ' Lega ' or ' La Leye ' of the feudal aids ; but where was it ? The Public Record Office identifies it as Lee (now a farm) in Puddington. 2 The British Museum, how- ever, no less confidently identifies the 'La Leigh' of 1357 as Thur- leigh. 3 The question is virtually decided in favour of the latter by the 'Nomina villarum ' of 13 16, where 'Lega' appears as a vill of the Hundred of Willey and Thurleigh does not 4 ; but in any case the feudal descent establishes that identity. 6 Of the places remaining unidentified ' Hanefelde ' (1 hide) and ' Segresdone ' (1 virgate) were in Stodden Hundred, and ' Chenemonde- wiche,' a considerable estate of 3I hides, in that of Biggleswade. Mr. Airy traced this last down to ' Kimwick ' in the cartulary of St. Neot's, and I have found it as ' Kym'yke ' in the Valor Ecclesiasticus (temp. Hen. VIII.) ; but its present identity is unknown. I suspect, however, that it lay in the neighbourhood of Blunham or Sandy. It is found in the Testa (p. 243), as ' Kenemu ' de' wyk,' held with Blunham (which pre- cedes it in Domesday) by Henry de Hastings as seneschal of St. Edmund's Abbey. ' Elvendone,' in Stodden Hundred, was not, I think, Yelden, of which the undoubted form was ' Giveldene,' and which is complete as a ten-hide manor without it. The credit of identifying ' Subberie ' as a manor in Eaton Socon belongs to Mr. Airy. 8 I do not accept his con- clusion that ' Cudessane ' was merely a scribal error for ' Chichesane,' because the former is found in two distinct entries ; but, as ' Cudessane ' and 'Chichesane' (Chicksand) between them amount to 10 hides, they may well have been adjacent holdings with a common termination. 1 * Sed Wara hujus manerii jacuit in Bedefordscire T.R.E. in hundreto de Maneheve, et ibi est Mancrium et fuit semper ' (see the Victoria History of Herts, vol. i.) This use of ' Wara ' must be care- fully distinguished from that (also in the Bedfordshire survey) which is found in the phrase, ' dare warras,' though both relate to the payment of geld. 'Wares' or ' Warres,' which occurs repeatedly on the fief of Hugh de Beauchamp, is, of course, quite distinct from either and denotes Ware, Herts. 3 Feudal Aids (1899), i. 614. This identification was probably suggested by the fact that half a knight's fee « in Lega et Podyngtone ' was held of the great fee of Wahull. But this combination does not involve the proximity of the two places. 3 Index to the Charters and Rolls (1900), p. 742. 4 Feudal Aids, i. 17. 6 See the evidence printed in the Wahull peerage case. 8 It occurs four times in Feudal Aids, vol. i., but is not there identified, the name having vanished from the map. 216