Page:VCH Lancaster 1.djvu/367

DOMESDAY SURVEY lying waste. After Tostig, the most interesting person mentioned in the survey of this region is Ernuin the priest, who held Beetham and possibly its members under Roger, and occurs as 'the man of Roger of Poitou' in the survey of Roger's fees in Lincolnshire, in which county and in Nottinghamshire he or his father may perhaps be identified as the 'Ernuin' who held several manors before the conquest. He seems also to have held a manor in Bedfordshire, which his father had held under King Edward as the king's man. In Lincoln city he had a house which had been Earl Morcar's, and in the same county a small estate at Widme, which he held of King Edward in alms; another at Ingham, which he had received from the king and queen; and a third at Fillingham, which he had held of the queen. His father appears to have been named Ernuin Catenase, and to have held the manors of Scagglethorpe and Upper and Nether Poppleton, co. York, which a jury declared that Ernuin the priest ought to hold of Robert Malet. From these references it would appear that Ernuin had been one of King Edward's priests, and had been presented to more than one church, Beetham being one of them. To roughly fill in the picture, of which the outlines have been given, and so to obtain a more or less complete view of Lancashire and its inhabitants at this early date, is not difficult.

In 1066 no monastic house held a single carucate of land in these regions, notwithstanding the gifts in time past of Cartmel and Amounderness to religious uses. The parishes were few in number, and their endowments did not usually exceed 1 carucate, sometimes falling as low as 2 bovates, as at Blackburn. No large estates existed, nor does the status of the two or three thegns who held estates somewhat larger than their neighbours point to a condition different from that of the more free thegns found in other parts of England. The land between Ribble and Mersey was, with the exception of the demesne, almost entirely in the hands of thegns, or of their Northumbrian peers, drengs, 157 holdings consisting of a homestead and, on an average, 2¼ carucates of land. In Childwall there were four 'radmans,' the 'radchenistres' of the southern counties, holding 3 carucates between them. The country may well be described as a huge manor of royal demesne, where the ownership by the sovereign precluded the rise of any great estates or changes of any considerable moment in the status of its inhabitants. The customary services of the thegns in West Derby hundred are fully described in the survey (f. 269 b.) and with little variation applied also to the thegns of the other hundreds between Ribble and Mersey. Each thegn by custom paid a rent (called carucate geld) to the king of two ores of pence—that is 32d.—for each carucate of land, apparently in addition to a rent (farm) of similar amount, and likewise by custom assisted to build or repair the king's houses and other buildings, and all works in or about the king's halls and demesne lands. He also assisted in the construction and repair of 'fisheries' (piscariæ), which comprised fish-stalls or weirs and traps for eels, the former being the primitive method for taking salmon then and for centuries after in vogue, which consisted in making pools or weirs in tidal water, where fish