English Economic History: Select Documents. Various

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       FINANCE AND FOREIGN TRADE

PART I: 1000–1485

       Table of Contents

SECTION I

       Table of Contents

      THE EARLY ENGLISH MANOR AND BOROUGH

      1. Rights and Duties of All Persons [Rectitudines singularum personarum], c. 1000—2. The form of the Domesday Inquest, 1086—3. The borough of Dover, 1086—4. The borough of Norwich, 1086—5. The borough of Wallingford, 1086—6. The customs of Berkshire, 1086—7. Land of the Church of Worcester, 1086—8. The manor of Rockland, 1086—9. The manor of Halesowen, 1086—10. The manor of Havering, 1086.

The task of reconstructing the economic life of Saxon England is not easy, and while the document translated below (No. 1) vividly analyses the obligations and rights of the various classes of tenants and officers on Saxon estates of the eleventh century, it raises many difficulties and is probably only true for the more settled parts of the country. It affords, however, clear proof of a high agricultural and social development; and though the exact significance of specific terms, and the status of different classes, may remain obscure, a comparison of the Rectitudines and the Gerefa[2] with later extents and custumals, and with Domesday Book itself, establishes the essential continuity of English economic life and customs, notwithstanding the shock of the Norman Conquest.

The further study of Domesday Book will undoubtedly yield valuable results supplementing the information derived from Saxon documents. While it is primarily a supreme example of the defining spirit and centralising energy of the conquering race, it is also a permanent record of England before and at the time of the Norman invasion. Especially, perhaps, is this apparent in the detailed descriptions of the boroughs, which at once set forth Saxon customs and illustrate the effects of the Conquest. The extracts given below are intended to show in brief, first, the methods both of the commissioners who conducted the survey, and of the officials who reduced the information to a common form;[3] second, the fiscal preoccupation of the government; third, the origin and character of the early borough, especially manifest in the case of Wallingford (No. 5), and fourth, the different classes of tenants, free and unfree. Of particular interest are the following features: the manner of levying the feudal army (No. 6), the evidence of the looser organisation of the Eastern Counties, and the greater degree of freedom prevailing among tenants in the Danelaw (Nos. 4 and 8), the ample franchises that might be enjoyed by a great Saxon prelate (No. 7), the saltpans of Worcestershire (No. 9), and the gildhall of the burgesses of Dover (No. 3).

      AUTHORITIES