Page:VCH Herefordshire 1.djvu/334

 A HISTORY OF HEREFORDSHIRE valley of the Dore." And the essential point to be noted in the record is that this district was hidated,^* and that Ewias was not. So sharply marked is this distinction that while Bacton on the right bank of the Dore (which is in the diocese of Hereford) is assessed in hides (and is indeed a typical five-hide unit), Ewyas Harold (in the Welsh diocese), though just below it on the same bank, is reckoned in ' carucates ' like the recent conquests from the Welsh. And the economic evidence affords further confirma- tion ; for although Ewyas Harold was the easternmost point of the district, we find there, instead of villeins, Welshmen paying rent in honey. The conclusion, therefore, at which we arrive is that the old established boundary of the English realm was the valley of the Dore (' Straddele,')"' though the English had established themselves on most of its right bank, and that, west of this, Ewias remained, even in 1086, economically as well as ecclesiastically Welsh, while even politically its conquest was probably still imperfect. For the castellany of Ewias, as the Normans termed the district of which Ewyas Harold was the head, did not reach to the Black Mountains. This may be gathered from Domesday's statement that Ewyas Lacy (now Longtown), though less than four miles west of Ewyas Harold was outside both the castellany and the hundred.^' The hundred was that of ' Cutes- torn,' to which the castellany then belonged, though not hidated ; and as Ewyas Lacy was outside it, its lord was holding his own pleas for such men as were then to be found in that wild and devastated region.'" It appears to me that William Fitz Osbern, in giving this land to his trusted follower, together with four ' waste ' carucates within the castellany, was endeavouring to push his frontier to the Black Mountain range and hold down the local Welsh. When we turn to the other district annexed from Wales, Archenfield, in the south of the county, between the valleys of the Worm and the Wye, we find it, in 1086, not only still Welsh economically as well as ecclesias- tically, but also in possession of a local autonomy, which is recognized in Domesday as giving it a position apart from the rest of the county. To it are devoted two sections ; the first records 'the customs of the Welsh in Archenfield,' as they existed in the Confessor's day, and is placed on the opening page where we look for custumals in Domesday ; the second is a survey of the district, which is placed among ' the king's lands.' The first, after noting the curious duty of three parish priests to act as the king's envoys into Wales and sing masses on his behalf, hastens to start from the " So little known, apparently, was this that when Mr. Freeman came to Florence of Worcester's phrase that Harold, in 1055, 'fines Walanorum audacter ingressus, ultra Straddelc castrametatus est,' he rendered it : ' He passed the Welsh border, and pitched his camp beyond the frontier district of Straddele,* rightly identify- ing the name with that in the Herefordshire Domesday, but unable to locate it beyond denying a statement that it was in Denbighshire. So also Sir J. H. Ramsay (1898), following him, writes that Harold, 'passing through Herefordshire and crossing the border, marched a little way, " not far," into Wales, in fact as far as " Straddele," &c. &c.' {Foundations 0/ Engl, ii, 475). " Assessed in hides. '** Cf. Angh-Zax. Chron. (Rolls Ser.), sub anno 941. " ' Rogerius de Laci habet unam terram Ewias dictam, in fine Ewias. Haec terra non pertinet ad castella- riam neque ad Hundret.' Mr. G. T. Clark alleged that both Ewyas Harold and Ewyas Lacy ' are mentioned in Domesday as the seats of a castelry, a sort of Honour or superior lordship attached to the castle.' {^ed. Mil. Architecture, ii, 42.) It is essential to correct this error, for Domesday clearly recognized but one castel- lany of Ewias. '" ' De hac terra habet Rogerius xv sextaria mellis et xv porcos quando homines sunt ibi et placita super eos.' 266