Kingham Old and New; Studies in a Rural Parish

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1913. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER II THE KINGHAM OF DOMESDAY AND AFTER Here is the entry in Domesday Book relating to Kingham: Geoffry de Mandeville holds ten hides in Caningeham of the King. Land for sixteen ploughs. Now in demesne four ploughs, four slaves: nineteen villani, with ten bordarii, having twelve ploughs. There is a mill worth forty-four pence: also a hundred and nine acres of meadow, and thirty-three acres of pasture. It used to he worth twelve pounds, now fifteen pounds.1 The terse language of the great inquest gives us an adequate picture of Kingham and its land in the year 1o86--all of it, that is, which was in any sense taxable.2 There may have been persons living in the village who do not appear in the record, and there may have been land as yet unreclaimed which was within its ecclesiastical boundary, or land appropriated to the church which was exempt from taxation; but we have here everything that was essential to the community, the 1 'Goisfridus de Manneville tenet x hidas in Caningeham de rege: terra xvi carucis: nunc in dominio iiii carucae iiii servi: xix villani cum x bordariis habent xii Caracas. Ibi molendinum de xliiii denariis: cix acrae prati xxxiii acrae pasturae. Valuit xii lb. modo xv lb.' 2 VinogradofI, Villainage in England, p. 240 foil. Church alone excepted. Let us see what it has to tell us of the land and the people working on it. The first entry, that of the ten hides, does not help us much, for the hide, as all authorities are now agreed, was a unit not of area but of assessment, and assessment bore no ratio to area or to actual value in a manor or vill:1 and the number ten is a good round number constantly recurring all through Domesday. Geoffrey de Mandeville, to whom William had granted land in no less than eleven different counties,2 ...