Winchester in the Early Middle Ages: An Edition and Discussion of The Winton Domesday

London and Winchester were not described in the Domesday Book, but the royal properties in Winchester were surveyed for Henry I about 1110 and the whole city was surveyed for Bishop Henry of Blois in 1148. These two surveys survive in a single manuscript, known as the Winton Domesday, and constitute the earliest and by far the most detailed description of an English or European town of the early Middle Ages. In the period covered Winchester probably achieved the peak of its medieval prosperity. From the reign of Alfred to that of Henry II it was a town of the first rank, initially centre of Wessex, then the principal royal city of the Old English state, and finally `capital’ in some sense, but not the largest city, of the Norman Kingdom. This volume provides a full edition, translation, and analyses of the surveys and of the city they depict, drawing on the evidence derived from archaeological excavation and historical research in the city since 1961, on personal- and place-name evidence, and on the recent advances in Anglo-Saxon numismatics.

The Late Anglo-Saxon Period, 800–1100

This chapter, covering the late Anglo-Saxon and Norman Conquest period, outlines the major changes in land use which accompanied the creation of small local manors and the establishment of collaborative open-field farming. Those changes reflected the shift in relations from ones predominantly organized around social networks to ones of property ownership. Domesday Book supplies a crucial piece of evidence, in light of which fragmentary earlier evidence for the structure of the royal estate of Benson can be better understood. The strong implications of the period’s developments for inhabitants’ perceptions are examined, including through the boundary clauses accompanying royal land charters and the evidence for more structured settlements and systems of administration, including the hundred and its moot.

Identity, Naming, and Division

We focus on evidence of naming the landscape in the medieval period starting with evidence from Domesday Book (1086 AD) and then moving backwards. We make links between names, the use of the landscape, and issues of identity. Landscapes would have been named in all periods. We consider what can be said of earlier landscapes for which evidence is scant or non-existent. Enclosure and naming were probably linked, in that when smaller parcels of land, such as fields, were created the are likely to have been given names in order to refer to them. We think about boundaries as evidence of sacred landscapes and end with conclusions on long-term continuities and differences. The landscapes of the early medeieval period stand out from those earlier, especially after the divisions, such as parishes, imposed by the church.

The Acta of William the Conqueror, Domesday Book, the Oath of Salisbury, and the Legitimacy and Stability of the Norman Regime in England

Domesday Book, which is usually considered to be the product of William the Conqueror's great survey of England in 1086, is one of the most important sources of English medieval history. This article contributes to the vigorous and long-standing debate about the purpose of Domesday Book. It does so by exploring the light cast by some of William's royal acta on the activities and concerns of the king and his advisers while the Domesday survey was in progress. These are linked to the difficult political and military circumstances confronting William and his followers in 1085–86 and their desire to deal with these by strengthening the stability, legitimacy, and security of their regime in England. The article also casts additional light on the importance and dating of the relevant acta.

How and Why Was Domesday Made?*

This article offers a new interpretation of the Domesday survey, drawing upon a collaborative study of its earliest surviving manuscript, Exeter Cathedral Library MS 3500 (Exon). It identifies five principal stages: first, the survey was launched at Gloucester in midwinter 1085; secondly, fiscal information extracted from geld assessment lists was integrated with manorial detail supplied by landholders to create a survey organised on a geographical plan by hundred; thirdly, this hundredal recension was checked by a second group of commissioners at meetings of shire courts, generating a substantial corpus of contested matter; fourthly, the hundredal recension was restructured into circuit returns which grouped together and summarised the holdings of barons who held directly from the king; fifthly, Domesday Book itself was written directly from these circuit returns. Royal assemblies held at Easter, Whitsun and Lammas functioned as deadlines for the second, third and fourth stages respectively; and a major geld levied at the rate of six shillings to the hide was collected and accounted for during this period. The survey generated a range of different outputs, each intended to serve specific fiscal and political purposes: the hundredal recension was designed to facilitate a reassessment of geld liabilities; the lists of contested matter anticipated a later judicial review; the circuit returns, summaries and Domesday Book were designed to make the administration of the royal demesne and the profits of royal lordship more efficient. The latter also supplied barons with what amounted to confirmation charters of their uncontested holdings, for which they performed homage.

The Printing of Twelfth-Century English Historiography, and the Integration of Law with History

Chapter 10 opens with the first printing in the 1590s of several of the great works of twelfth-century English historical writing: Lord William Howard’s edition of John of Worcester (1592); and Henry Savile’s of William of Malmesbury, Henry of Huntingdon, Roger of Howden, and (purporting to be twelfth-century) Pseudo-Ingulf’s Historia Croylandensis (1596). It then proceeds to the editing and publication of works of Norman historiography which encompassed the Conquest: William of Jumièges, William of Poitiers, and Orderic Vitalis. It pays a great deal of attention to William Camden and Robert Cotton. The chapter culminates with a discussion of John Selden’s edition of Eadmer’s Historia novorum. This is shown to combine the two strands of antiquarian interest examined in preceding chapters: medieval historical writing, and medieval law. In terms both of choice of text and focus of editorial attention, it reveals that by the reign of James VI and I, the Conquest had again become the key issue in English medieval history. The chapter also discusses chorographical history as espoused by William Lambarde and William Camden, and the beginnings of scholarly investigation of Domesday Book. It ends by looking forward to the central role which controversy about the Conquest would play in political arguments of the seventeenth century.

The Conquest in Later Medieval English Law I

Chapter 6 begins by demonstrating how the compilations of Old English royal law codes underpinned the great thirteenth-century conspectus of common law known as Bracton. It traces them, and the theme of the Conquest, through subsequent thirteenth-century books of English jurisprudence—specifically Britton, Fleta, and the Mirror of Justices. It examines the role of historical material, particularly ancient charters and Domesday Book, in forensic practice in the thirteenth century and later. There are two particular foci: ‘ancient demesne’ cases, and the Quo warranto inquest, on both of which this discussion throws new light. Much use is made of the recent substantial edition of thirteenth-century Law Reports.