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A HISTORY OF BEDFORDSHIRE them, who claimed that they had the king's consent for holding them. These lands had belonged to thegns or sokemen who had power to dis- pose of them, but the Domesday commissioners hardly seem to be con- cerned with the wrongs of the previous holders ; they are rather examining the titles of those who were then in possession, and who ' said ' they held by the king's grant. How closely the evidence of title was examined is seen in the entry that, of 3^ virgates held by Chetelbert at Carlton, he had taken possession (occupavit) of i for which he could neither prove livery of seisin nor vouch any man to warranty. Still more remarkable is the case, on an earlier page, of Ernwi the priest (fo. 21 1), who held a hide at Harrowden, which his father had held before him in King Edward's time. He could neither prove livery of seisin nor produce the king's writ to account for his possession of his father's land, which ' the Hundred ' consequently charges him with taking possession of to the king's injury [super regerri) . Two burgesses of Bedford had similarly got into trouble by buying land since the Conquest without the transfer being ratified by the king. This was at Biddenham, where it was found, on scrutinizing the holdings of Godwine and Ordwi, that the former had ' done service ' to no one for that portion of his land which he had bought and could not prove livery of seisin (nee de ea liber- atorem habuit), while Ordwi had similarly ' done service ' to no one for the land he had bought there. Of others, on the contrary, it is recorded that they were able to produce the king's writ and seal. At Henwick Edward duly produced both the writ and the witness of ' the Hundred ' that the king had granted him his small paternal estate ' in alms ' ; and so did ' Almar ' at Sharnbrook. Even the Church was not exempt from having to produce its title in the case of newly acquired land, and the canons of St. Paul's of London proved their right to Caddington by showing the king's writ. 1 The larger portion of Caddington, which lay in Hertfordshire and is sur- veyed under that county, had been held by the same thegn before the Conquest and had been similarly acquired by the canons. It is worth noting that Domesday is silent as to their producing, for that portion, any evidence that the king had sanctioned its acquisition. For what was done in the one case must have been done in the other, and I conclude, therefore, that in this, as in so many matters, the silence of Domesday is not evidence, and that in all such cases proof was called for and pro- duced. It must always be remembered in reading the survey that its chief object was the ascertainment of the king's rights and dues, and that it was this that the Commissioners would specially keep in view. Whether William actually promulgated any universal rule as to Englishmen and their lands, and, if so, what that rule was, can only be matters of inference. So far as we can judge, all but a few specially favoured individuals were deprived of the lands they had held, or at most were allowed to retain a fragment or were placed in subjection to a 1 'Canonici habent brevem regis in quo continetur quod ipse hoc manerium dedit aecclcsii sancti Pauli.' 206