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 DOMESDAY SURVEY held Basford, Nottinghamshire,* 8 between them. It may also be noted that the entry relating to Arnesby makes an addition to the population of the borough of Leicester, for we are told that ' in Leicester there is one burgess who belongs to this vill,' who nevertheless is not included in the survey of the county town. ' The land of William Buenvaslet,' which is entered next, is perhaps the smallest estate anywhere described in Domesday under a separate rubrica- tion. We are merely told that, ' William Buenvaslet holds two carucates of land in Ravenstone. It was and is waste.' William Loveth, whose fief is described at the head of the next folio of the survey, only held land to the value of 501. in Leicestershire. In the margin of the MS. against the entry of his fief there is placed the note : ' Stofalde i?i, p', i, v*, W.' Taken by itself this is quite unintelligible, but in the Northants Domesday William Loveth is assigned the third part of a waste virgate in Stotfold (now part of Rothwell) hundred, a sum which exactly answers to the contracted statement contained in the present note. As William Loveth held land in Theddingworth in Leicestershire adjoining Stotfold hundred, it is probable that his small holding in Northants was situated immediately to the south of the Welland opposite this point. Geoffrey Alselin, who follows in the record, is a person of more importance. In Leicestershire, as elsewhere, he had succeeded to the estates of the powerful English thegn Tochi the son of Outi, whose holding in our county had been small but singularly compact. It consisted of land in the adjoining vills of Hallaton, Goadby, Keythorpe, Billesdon, and Rolleston, and so far as our evidence goes, the possession of each of these vills had passed in its entirety from Tochi to Geoffrey. Manor and vill so rarely coincide in the Danelaw that the present instance is worth recording, especially in view of the fact that Tochi had exercised rights of sac and soc over the entire estate. Geoffrey de Wirce, whose lands are entered in succession to those of Geoffrey Alselin, held one of the largest estates in the county. His lands were mainly situated in the north-eastern wapentake of Framland, and were to a large extent dependent upon the great manor of Melton Mowbray, whose tithes he had already bestowed upon his recent foundation of Monks Kirby Priory in Warwickshire. The description of the fief presents certain difficulties which cannot wholly be explained at present, of which perhaps the most formidable relates to the assessment of Melton Mowbray itself. This instance has already been mentioned for its bearing upon the question of the Leicestershire hides, but the whole passage deserves quotation. We are told that ' Geoffrey holds Melton. There are 7 hides and i carucate of land and i bovate. In each hide there are 14! carucates of land. In demesne there are 4 ploughs and 4 serfs and 20 villeins with 2 priests and 14 bordars who have 6j ploughs.' Now we have seen enough to know that a Leicestershire manor will normally be rated heavily in pro- portion both to its agricultural condition and to its reputed value, but an assessment of IO2| carucates on an estate of this size would represent a burden of taxation absurdly out of all possible relation to agrarian fact, and the Leicestershire Survey assigns the modest sum of 15 carucates to 48 V.CM. Notts, i, 270. 295