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 A HISTORY OF HEREFORDSHIRE Welshmen with eight ploughs of their own were, as usual, paying a rent in honey and in coin, while, under the Confessor, land which his successor had included within his forest bounds had been used to render six sestiers of honey and six sheep with their lambs, the same render that we have seen paid to the Norman lord of Kilpeck. Thus on the Wye, as on the Dore, Domesday enables us to trace the boundary lines of ancient conquest where the English folk, had here and there fought their way across the stream. The ancient system of assessment, based on the 5-hide unit,**" of which Radnor is an instance," is fairly well illustrated in our county, as in Glouces- tershire to the south and Worcestershire to the east." The canons' manor of Bromsgrove is entered as of 30 hides, and the two royal manors of ' Lene ' as of 1 5 hides each. Cowarne was a 1 5-hide manor, and so was Pencombe, and there are others of 10 hides and 5 hides."* But until the parochial history has been written and the hundreds reconstructed it will not be possible to establish the assessment of the county in detail. The Survey presents, however, so many points of interest in its his- torical and economic aspects that these alone would provide ample matter for discussion. And its evidence can be made to yield information of greater importance than would be gathered from a mere perusal of the bare text. Close study of the great Survey enables us to reconstruct more completely than hitherto the Conqueror's treatment of the Welsh March. The palatine position of the earl of Chester as guardian of the northern March is a fact familiar to historians from the long continuation of his powers ; that of the earl of Shrewsbury, the guardian of the middle March, is fully recognized by Professor Tait in his brilliant essay on the Shropshire Domesday ; *^ but that William Fitz Osbern, earl of Hereford, held a similar position on the southern (or 'western') March has not yet, it would seem, been fully grasped. The fact that his earldom had come to an end, through the treason and down- fall of his son (1074), years before the Domesday Survey has naturally made that position more difficult to prove. The clue is afforded by William's dealings with the king's own manors, dealings which show that he must have been invested with the same peculiar rights as Roger de Montgomery in Shropshire. We read of the latter that ' the same Earl Roger holds of the King the city of Shrewsbury and the whole county {comitatum) and the whole demesne {dominium) which King Edward used to have there, and twelve manors with fifty-seven berewicks belonging thereto,' &c. Sec.** And the royal demesne manors in that county are entered accordingly as his own land. What we have to show is that in Herefordshire William Fitz Osbern similarly stood, in this respect, in the king's shoes. We start from Orderic's statement that the Conqueror ' gave to William Fitz Osbern, Steward of Normandy, the Isle of Wight {Vectam) and the county (comitatum) of Hereford.' " In the Isle of Wight, as the writer has shown, it is possible to trace his actual lordship and his possession of royal manors — especially Bowcombe, in which he fixed his seat at Caris- " See the writer's Feud. Engl, and Prof. Maitland, Dom. Bk. and Beyond. " See p. 264 above. " In Shropshire also, to the north, there is ample evidence of the use of a 5-hide unit ; V.C.H. Shrops. i, 284. "° Among the manors surveyed under Shropshire, Leintvcardine and Buckton were assessed at 5 hides each, and Brampton (Bryan), and the Pedwardines at 2^ hides respectively. *' V.C.H. Shrops. i, 288. •" Fol. 254. " Hist. Eccl. (ed. Soci6ti6 de I'histoire de France), ii, 218. 270