of Berkhampstead, of Wigod of Wallingford, and of Wulfward 'White' and his wife I have already spoken.
The name of Wulfward ' White ' reminds us that among those who had clearly held a large interest in the county was Edith the Confessor's queen. We know little or nothing of how she came by her lands, but the extent of those possessed by her brothers in this district suggests that some of them at least may have been her father Godwine's. She had, as the text will show, a number of ' men ' in the county, but these, as well as her own estates, were divided, presumably at her death (1075), among several tenants-in-chief. The Bishop of Bayeux succeeded her at Hughenden and Marlow, the Bishop of Coutances, Robert d'Ouilly, Geoffrey de Mandeville, Walter, and ' Godric Cratel ' at other places, but her largest manor was bestowed on Ælfric the cook. The total assessment of her manors was over 80 hides, 10 of which at Wycombe were held of her by ' Brictric.' This Brihtric the name is variously spelt in the record was a thegn of some importance who had ' men ' of his own in the county, and some at least of whose lands were divided between Robert d'Ouilly and Milo Crispin.[1]
One more former holder of land in the county may be mentioned. This was Fin the Dane, whose land at Cheddington was divided between Robert d'Ouilly and Suerting. His occurrence is of interest because this outlying estate was far removed from his lands in Essex and Suffolk, which had passed to Richard de Clare. In that district he seems to have retained them for a time after the Conquest, and his wife was still holding two Essex manors at the time of the Survey.[2]
The Buckinghamshire portion of the Survey brings prominently before us the very difficult question of the change of tenure at the Conquest. It is the tendency of Domesday to assimilate in form the conditions prevailing in England before and after the Conquest; and one of the signs of that tendency is the use of the same word (homo) for the ' man ' of the Norman lord and of his English predecessor. The impression is thus conveyed that the former's compact ' fief resembled what was relatively the loose congeries of rights that the great thegn had held. Yet, even while it conveys this impression, the record itself enables us to correct it by the facts which it contains. We should, at first sight, be led to believe that, before as after the Conquest, the county was parcelled out between great lords and their ' men,' of whom the latter held the manors which were not retained in demesne. But the vital difference is this: the 'fief which the Normans introduced was an absolutely integral whole; whether its manors were held in demesne or by tenants of the lord they all passed together; but the bond which united the ' man ' of the English thegn to his lord did not involve the passing of their lands as an indivisible whole.
An excellent case in point is afforded in this county by the devolution of the lands and ' men ' of Ælfric son of Coding. Judging from the number of his men his influence was great, but it was local; outside
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