Domesday Book Undertenants and Knight's Fees
Colin B. Withers
The Domesday Book is generally arranged by County (some exceptions are the lands in the North, later to become Westmorland, Cumberland, Northumberland and County Durham, and the cities of London and Winchester, and some other towns), and at the head of each County is the list of the tenants-in-chief.
Then for each vill in each county we get an entry like this:
"In Lastone [Laughton, Lincs] Swen had 1½ carucates of land (assessed) to the geld. There is land for 2 teams. Blancard, Roger of Poitou’s man, has 1 team there [in demense], and 3 villeins ploughing with 3 oxen, and half a mill rendering 12 pence, and half a fishery rendering 2 shillings, and 15 acres of meadow. At the time of King Edward it was worth 30 shillings, now 20 shillings."
I see, for example, that Blancard (sic) is an undertenant of the Tenant-in-Chief (Roger of Poitou), and that he has one 'team', but are these 'teams' equivalent to a Knights Fee? He also held of Roger in the manors of Audelby and Nettleton in Domesday.
Blanchard does show up the Testa de Nevil (Return of Knights Fees), 1242-3, holding the same three manors of Laughton, Audelby and Nettleton (now the fee of the Honour of Lancaster), which I believe proves that Blancard = Blanchard. However, can I state that the term 'team' implies a Knights Fee (or part thereof)?
The references from the Testa de Nevil are appended for reference.
Many thanks
Wibs
Part II
Page 1014
Wapentacium de Jerdeburg’
Netelton’. Willelmus Blaunchard tenet in Nettilton’, Slysby, et Houton’ dimidium feodum militis de honore Lancastrie de Henrico de Muneden’, et idem Henricus de domino rege de conquestu.
(1242-1243
Page 1074
Feoda de Honore Lancastrie.
Willelmus Blanchard’ tenet dimidium feodum in Nettleton’ et Clisseby.
Willelmus Blanchard’ tenet dimidium feodum j. Militis in Lacton’.
(1242-1243)
Page 1110
Feoda Henrici de Munedene de Honore...
Willelmus Blachart de Lacton’ tenet tria feoda militis in Lindishey [de feodo Henrici de Muneden’, et ipse in capite de domino rege].
(1242-1243)
Page 1475
Appendix, Misc List of Landowners, 1238-1241
Wapentach’ de Jorburg’.
Hernisus de Nouill’ et Robertus Ramage quartam partem feudi militis de feudo Eustachii de Grenevill’. Willelmus Blanchard’ ibidem et in Clisbi quartam partem feudi militis de feudo Henrici de Mukedain’.
Matt Tompkins
wrote:
Domesday references to teams do not equate directly to knight's fees.
However the expression is used in two ways (or three if you include
the references to carucates of land), one of which can be related,
rather indirectly, to knight's fees.
The original Latin word which your source has translated as 'team' is
'caruca', which strictly means 'plough', though 'plough-team' is
understood (usually supposed to be an 8-ox team). Most entries
contain three different types of references to ploughs.
First, there is usually a statement that there are X carucates of
land, and then another that there is land for x ploughs (the latter
often referred to by historians as 'plough-lands'). Etymologically
these statements are identical, both meaning that there is as much
land as can be ploughed by an ox-team, but it isn't uncommon for a
holding to contain more plough-lands than carucates. Carucates seem
to be fiscal assessments, describing not how much land there is but
how much tax should be paid, whereas plough-lands seem more likely to
be an actual statement of area.
The third reference to ploughs is usually along the lines that the
lord and the tenants have a certain number of ploughs, here meaning
meaning actual ploughs and plough-teams to pull them. Sometimes there
are more plough-teams than there are plough-lands, which suggests that
even the plough-land may not always have been an accurate measure of
area. Academic historians have been happily debating these and
similar problems for over a century without reaching any firm
conclusions.
Clearly the third type of reference to ploughs, the number of plough-
teams, has nothing to do with knight's fees. The number of carucates
is unlikely to have anything to do with knight's fees either, since
carucates describe not area, or even value, but only liability to tax,
and holdings of similar size could be assessed for taxation at wildly
differing rates (the result of past concessions to favoured
landholders, whose rating had been reduced).
However the plough-land ('land for 1 plough') does seem to describe,
roughly, the actual size of a holding - so was the Domesday plough-
land a knight's fee by another name? Strictly speaking, no - manors
which in later centuries would be rated as a full knight's fee were
seldom rated in Domesday as a single plough-land, they were usually
considerably larger, generally around 5 hides or carucates, ie about 5
plough-lands (though there was considerable variation).
But the Domesday knight was a much less expensive fellow than his
successors. The average holding of men described in Domesday as
'milites' was only 1.4 hides/carucates, and the median and mode
holdings were both a mere 1 hide/carucate - a holding which has been
described as putting them 'only just above most well-to-do peasants.'
So a Domesday holding of just one plough-land could indeed be the
holding of a knight (though a rather poor one, who was probably
receiving some other additional form of support from his lord).
However it could also be the holding of some other kind of retainer,
or of a peasant farmer, and plough-lands cannot be equated
straightforwardly with knights' holdings (and certainly not with the
knight's fees of later feudal records).
Matt Tompkins
Colin B. Withers
Matt Tompkins
==================================================================
Many thanks for that Matt,
I could see from the Latin text of the Testa de Nevil that Blancard's descendent, William Blanchard, was holding half a Knights Fee in two of the manors and a third in the other, and was wondering if this was the situation at Domesday, ie he held these subdivisions of a Knights Fee then, as Roger had subtenanted the amount of land equal to a Knights Fee to two or more tenants, (Blancard and others), or whether Blancard held full Knights Fees at Domesday and between then and the Testa they had been divided by heirs, due to a will perhaps.
Wibs
Matt Tompkins
wrote:
<< I could see from the Latin text of the Testa de Nevil that
Blancard's descendent, William Blanchard, was holding half a Knights
Fee in two of the manors and a third in the other, and was wondering
if this was the situation at Domesday, ie he held these subdivisions
of a Knights Fee then, as Roger had subtenanted the amount of land
equal to a Knights Fee to two or more tenants, (Blancard and others),
or whether Blancard held full Knights Fees at Domesday and between
then and the Testa they had been divided by heirs, due to a will
perhaps.>>
I don't think every holding described as a fraction of a knight's fee
had necessarily resulted from an earlier subdivision of a full
knight's fee (though many did). I'm sure many of the holdings
recorded in Domesday Book had been created (some by grants from Norman
lords after the conquest, others by grants from Anglo-Saxon lords in
the more distant past) without conscious reference to a standard-sized
knight's fee - lords just endowed their military followers with as
much or as little land as they wished. Later as the system of fees
became more regularised these holdings of variable size were fitted
into it as whatever fraction of a fee their size and wealth-generating
capacity justified.
So I think it unlikely that Roger of Poitou created a knight's fee and
then divided it between Blancard and other individuals (especially as
he had no other lands or tenants in Audlesby and Nettleton, and the
rest of his land in Laughton he kept in his own hands).
But I also hesitate to say whether Blancard's three Domesday holdings
were granted to him as a single, though dispersed, knight's fee
(though it's interesting that they totalled 3.7 carucates or 5
ploughlands - a good holding for a Domesday knight and a smallish but
respectable knight's fee by later standards). The fact that in the
Testa de Nevil one man (William Blanchard) holds all three, but as
distinct manors each equivalent to a fraction of a knight's fee,
suggests to me that they were not the result of subdivision of a full
knight's fee - but it's impossible to say for sure.
Matt