Page:VCH Worcestershire 1.djvu/313

 THE DOMESDAY SURVEY as a possession for the monastery at Worcester, reserving to himself a life-interest. On his dying in the midst of the struggle for the crown between Cnut and Eadmund 'Ironside' {circ. 1016), these vills were seized, they said, by ' iEvic ' (or ' Eire ') then sheriff of Staffordshire, in the hands of whose successors they remained to the wrong of the monastery/ Mr. Eyton, without alluding to this story, observed that the connection of the sheriff of Staffordshire with these manors was prob- ably the cause ' that led to Tarbeck, Clent, and Brome ^ being subse- quently annexed to Staffordshire. . . . These estates are now ' re- mised ' into Worcestershire." We have seen, by this time, how needful it is, in dealing with the Domesday Survey, to bear in mind the fluctuation, at various times, of the area of the shire. But there was another disturbing element, which, although it did not affect the actual county boundaries, had a very important influence on its survey in Domesday Book. It appears to have been overlooked by students of the Worcestershire Domesday, whether in the past or in the present, whether general or local, that the surveys of several manors in the county are found in quite another part of Domesday Book.* In the midst of the King's lands in Herefordshire (fo. i8oi^) we find surveys of Martley, Feckenham, Holloway,^ Hanley (Castle), Bushley* with Pull (Court), QueenhiU (Chapel), Eldersfield, and Suckley. Moreover, under Gloucestershire (fo. 163^) we find another and independent survey of Hanley (Castle), of which place Domesday was supposed to contain no mention. On the one hand, these entries constitute an important addition to the survey of the shire, of which they affect the manorial history and the reckoning of the population in 1086 ; on the other, they possess, for the Domesday student, a quite peculiar value in so far as they preserve independent surveys of the same estate. One alone of the places affected, namely Hanley (Castle), is described by Domesday as 'in Gloucestershire' (fo. 180^). The ex- planation of this description is found under Gloucestershire (fo. 163*^), where we learn that, with Forthampton, it belonged to that great lord- ship of Tewkesbury, which had been held before the Conquest by Brihtric son of ^Elfgar,' and 'the members' of which paid their geld at ' Heming's Cartulary, pp. 276-7. land's Domesday Book and Beyond, p. 454, and Proceedings of the Worcester Architectural and Archaological Society (1892), p. 264. ^ Adjoining Feckenham. ® Confused, not unnaturally, with Bisley (in Gloucestershire) by Professor Freeman {Nor- man Conquest, IV. 762), and in The Red Book of the Exchequer (pp. 568, 656, 662, 689, 704). ' The story of this great thegn should come under Gloucestershire, but in his appendix on 'Brihtric and Matilda' {Norm. Conq. [1871], IV. 761-4), Professor Freeman pointed out that the legend connecting their names is ' slightly ' supported by its placing his arrest at Hanley, ' which we see from Domesday was really one of his lordships.' He spoke of it, indeed, as a 'Gloucestershire ' entry (p. 762), but the place is Hanley (Castle), Worcestershire. The words of the rhyming story are : ' Pris fu a Haneleye a son maner, Le ior ke Saint Wlstan li ber Sa chapele auoit dedie.' 239
 * Probably included in the Domesday Survey of Clent. * Staffordshire Domesday, p. 8.
 * See, for instance, Nash's Worcestershire, Ellis' Introduction to Domesday, II. 507, Mait-