Page:VCH Hertfordshire 1.djvu/351

 THE DOMESDAY SURVEY master, Peter the Norman sheriff evicted the English thegn and his mother, and maintained before the Domesday commissioners, in defiance of William's writ, that he held the manor by gift of the king. Viewed as a piece of clerical work the Hertfordshire portion of Domesday Book is a favourable specimen of the whole. But there are a few strange slips. In a Shenley entry the scribe appears to have written so/' for pore', in a Rushden one sol' for llb and in one relating to Boreson soch for sol' ; he has also written dim hid' for dint car" in an Aldbury entry, and substituted ' xxxiii ' for ' xxiii ' at Cheshunt, and 'iiii' for 'xiiii' at Stanstead. And there is one instructive error. The land of the abbot of Ramsey is duly entered in the text, but in the list of holders' names, preceding 'the king's land,' it is erroneously omitted. From this we learn that the text was not compiled in accordance with the list, but vice versa. Moreover, in the text the abbot's land is duly numbered as ' xi,' but in the list its omission transfers ' xi ' to the entry which follows. There is thus caused a discrepancy between the list and the text, which continues down to what the text calls ' the land of the king's thegns ' and numbers as 'xlii,' while the list enters ' Derman and other Englishmen of the king ' as ' xli.' Then, in order that the two may close with the same number, the text repeats ' xlii ' for the land of Rothais and thus produces a seeming concordance with the closing numbers in the list. From all this it would seem to follow that, when the text was written, a space was left for the list of holders, which was compiled subsequently from the text. The numbering of the fiefs then revealed a discrepancy caused by the omission of the abbot of Ramsey in the list, and the numeral ' xlii ' was consequently repeated in the text to bring the total of the entries in the text and the list into superficial harmony. Perhaps the most perplexing statement on Hertfordshire in Domes- day Book is one that is not found under Hertfordshire itself. In the volume dealing with the Eastern Counties the survey of the great manor of Hatfield (Broadoak), Essex which had been held by Harold under the Confessor states that 'there belonged to this manor T.R.E., 3 bere- wites, Herefort [Hertford], Emwella [Amwell], and Hodesduna [Hod- desdon], lying in Herefortsira [Hertfordshire], which are now held by Ralf de Limeseia ' (ii. 2<), and we further read that ' the 3 berewites were then worth 12 pounds.' Of these three Amwell alone is entered in Domesday as held by Ralf and as formerly held by Harold, to whom, we learn, it was worth 1 8 pounds. Independent entries in Domesday vary, at times, considerably, but for so remarkable a discrepancy as is revealed by the above entries it is difficult to suggest an explanation. The statement, however, that Ralf held ' Hertford ' is noteworthy in view of the fact that he gave to St. Albans a church he had built there, with a hide of land appendant, which became the nucleus of Hertford Priory. 299