English Society in the Eleventh Century; Essays in English Mediaeval History (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1908. Excerpt: ... SECTION II: RURAL ORGANIZATION CHAPTER I MANORS i. The term manor and the M. serving to abbreviate The it meet the eye of the Domesday inquirer at every moment, and it is especially important to grasp its exact meaning or varieties of meaning. To begin with, the expression is clearly used in the sense of the mansion, the residence of a more or less exalted personage. One might appeal, to substantiate this meaning, not only to the undoubted derivation from manere through the medium of the French manoir, but also to the equivalent employed by the Exon Domesday--mansio, instead of manerium. But the more common, and, one may say, the prevalent meaning, is that of an estate or district, of which the central house is the hall (aula). The general correspondence with estates is sufficiently clear in the frequent cases when the colourless terra, in the sense of a complex of land, is used as an equivalent to Manerium. Thus to the ' Mansion ' of Middelton in Devon, two other ' mansions ' are added according to the Exon Domesday--Lega and Littleton, and these very manors are described in the Exchequer Domesday as terrae, estates.1 This would be in keeping with other cases where terra is used in an entirely neutral sense as a tract of land.2 But the terms may be opposed to each other with the evident object of drawing more precise distinctions. The 1 Dd. i. 103c (cf. iv. 164): 'Cum hoc manerio (Middeltone) tenet abbas (de Tauestoch) ii terras Lege et Liteltone. Has tenuerunt ii taini T.R.E. pro ii maneriis.' Cf. Round, in the E. H. R. 1900. 1 Dd. iv. 328: (? In North Petherton Hd., Somerset) 'Walterus habet i uirgatam que uocatur Doneham quam tenuit Algarus... et est de ilia terra quam K. dedit ei inter ii aquas.' MSOGRADOKF manor of Lindene in Gloucestershire is said...