Tring and the Domesday Book:
a historical note.

William the Conqueror commissioned the Domesday survey in December 1085 and it was substantially complete by the following year.  It contains records for 13,418 settlements in the English counties south of the River Ribble and the River Tees, then the border with Scotland.

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle rather exaggerates Domesday's thoroughness by claiming that “there was not a single hide, not one virgate of land, ... not even one ox, nor one cow, nor one pig … escaped notice in his survey.”

The survey is of great historical importance, comprising a detailed statement of land held by the King and his tenants and of the resources that went with them at a time when reliable records are comparatively rare.  Domesday records which manors rightfully belonged to which estates and identifies the tenants-in-chief (landholders) who held their land directly from the Crown, their tenants and under tenants.  It records their monetary values and any customary dues owed to the Crown at the time of the survey; values recorded before Domesday; and values from before 1066.

The compilation of Domesday in a mere matter of months says much for the effectiveness of the system of government acquired by the Normans.  The process was as follows:

• existing information about manors, people and assets was collected, including documents dating from the Anglo-Saxon period and post-1066 which listed lands and taxes in existence.  These were held in the principal royal city of Winchester and in the shires.  Each tenant-in-chief and local official was also required to send in a list of manors and men.  Then....

• ....to verify or correct this information, commissioners were assigned sections of England called circuits.  They then visited each town, village and hamlet within their circuit asking the same questions of everyone with an interest in land, from the barons to the villagers. The evidence they amassed was recorded in Latin, as was the survey as a whole, and then sorted into counties, landholders, hundreds and manors.

The precise justification for Domesday is unclear; it has no title page, no preface, and no indication of author although there are indications of a single editor. Among the probable reasons it was compiled is one familiar in the present age, the need to assess liabilities for taxes due to the Crown (the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle gives William's reign a generally favourable review, but contains the caveat that "his anxiety for money is the only thing on which he can deservedly be blamed; . . .he would say and do some things and indeed almost anything . . .where the hope of money allured him").

Initially called "the King's Book" and the "Great Book of Winchester", the Domesday Book got its name from a 12th Century Treasurer, Richard Fitznigell, who wrote: "this book is called the English Domesday not because it passes judgement on any doubtful points raised, but because it is not permissible to contradict its decisions, any more than it will be those of the last judgement".

Another likely explanation is that William needed more information about the country he had conquered 20 years earlier to help bring order from the chaos that followed; indeed, because of its great respect Domesday has been invoked in the settlement of land disputes until well into the 20th Century.

William died in September 1087 and perhaps for this reason Domesday was never completed.  What we have is two volumes, Great Domesday and Little Domesday.  Little Domesday, which comprises detailed, undigested material destined for Great Domesday, covers the counties of Essex, Norfolk and Suffolk.  Great Domesday comprises summarised data for much of the rest of England as it existed in 1086, including a small part of what is now Wales.  For some reason Great Domesday excludes present day Northumbria and some important cities, such as Durham, Winchester and London. 

The Domesday entries for Tring

Literacy being rare, Norman French-speaking monks were often pressed into service as scribes to the Domesday commissioners and they wrote down the Anglo-Saxon place names as they heard them. This might explain why Tring appears in Domesday variously as Tredunga, Tredunge and Treunge.

Following summarisation, Domesday records were sorted into county order, then into the order of landholders, and finally into the order of manors within hundreds.

Several landowners held land within the Tring Hundred. Domesday tells us that "Count Eustace holds Tring" [itself], which at the time amounted to 5 hides and 1 virgate comprising land for 20 ploughs. The commissioners recorded the existence of 2 mills, pasture for the livestock of the village and woodland for 1,000 pigs. The workforce comprised 21 villans, 6 bordars, 16 cottars, 3 sokesmen and 8 slaves. The record goes on to assess the dues for Tring at £20 per annum.

William's half brother, the Count of Mortain, also held property in Tring Hundred.  This included the adjacent villages of Aldbury and Pendley (in the 1440's, Sir Robert Whittingham ran the Pendley villagers off the land, which he then cleared to build his manor house - it is now occupied by a hotel and a conference centre), Berkhamsted and Hemel Hempstead.  The Count's tenants also held land in the area at Miswell, Dunsley, Little Gaddesden and Boarscroft.

TERMINOLOGY

Bordar: peasant of lower economic status than a villan, probably with a cottage and a little land.

Cottar: see 'bordar'.... the difference between the two is now unclear.

Hundred: an administrative sub-division of the county with fiscal, military and judicial functions. It held about 100 households (or 'hides'). 

Hide: the amount of land (approx. 120 acres) that would support a household and the standard unit for tax assessment. A 'acre' was a day's ploughing for one team; it varied with the terrain.

Plough: an assessment of the dues required from the estate based on its arable capacity.

Slaves (or 'serfs'): would have worked their lord's land in return for food and housing.

Sokeman: a free man, though often only a peasant.

Villan: a villager who had a reasonable amount of land and might also have had tenants. 

Virgate: one quarter of a hide.