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III.—The Devastation of Bedfordshire and the Neighbouring Counties in 1065 and 1066

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 November 2011

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The work which I have the honour of laying before the Society to-night makes no pretence to originality of idea. That credit is due to Mr. Francis Baring, Dr. Round, and their predecessors. But I do venture to claim for it some small novelty in the application to the problem of more scientific methods than have as yet been applied to it, which should yield more certain conclusions. The starting-point of this study was the attempt of the late Mr. Baring to trace the route of the Conqueror's army in 1066 by the records of the devastation which are preserved in Domesday Book. For certain counties he took the values of the manors in King Edward's day (T. R. E. valet), a date which we may call 1065/6; and also the value when the manor was received by a Norman baron—in Domesday phrase the Quando Receptum or Q. R. valet—generally taken as 1067/8. From what may be called a naked-eye comparison of these two values, he inferred that a part at least of William's army had passed through those manors which showed a heavy depreciation in 1067/8 as compared with 1066, and he provisionally indicated the routes followed by the columns. The weakness of his case, however, lay in the facts, first, that he apparently considered only the manors, and not all the holdings in each village; secondly, that he merely considered the absolute figures as recorded by Domesday. To those who were not so familiar with the Great Survey as was Mr. Baring, the method was unconvincing, and, in consequence, many scholars have remained sceptical of his conclusions.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1922

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References

page 41 note 1 T. R. E. (tempore Regis Edwardi) 1065/6, followed by a Period of Depreciation.

page 41 note 2 zQ. R. (Quando Receptum). 1067/8, followed by a Period of Recovery.

page 41 note 3 T. R. W. (tempore Regis Willelmi) 1086.

page 44 note 1 The R has been accidentally omitted at Luton, which then included Stopsley and Hyde.

page 47 note 1 To any one unfamiliar with the construction of this, it may be explained that from a base line perpendiculars have been erected, the lengths of which are proportional to the number of cases in which the various percentages occur; a curve is then constructed so as to touch as nearly as possible the ends of the perpendiculars, and the resulting graph enables the statistics involved to be grasped easily.

page 47 note 2 This graph has not been reproduced.

page 50 note 1 Erratum on pl. IX: for Leckhampton (N.W. Bucks.) read Leckhampstead.