Buckinghamshire we cannot recognize him as holding any manor but that of Woburn, just across the Bedfordshire border, which had passed with the rest of his lands to Walter Giffard. But in this county we find him occurring as Walter's predecessor at Chilton, Easington, Dor- ton, Pollicot, Akeley, Moreton, Beachampton, Bourton, Hillesden, Woolstone, Linford. Of the manors, however, which had here been held by ' men' of Ælfric, Walter only obtained one which had been Wulfric's, one which had been Tofig's, two which had been Oswi's, and one other. But the Count of Mortain, at six places, obtained the lands of JElfric's ' men,' Milo Crispin did so at Bradwell, Countess Judith succeeded to two of his thegns at Clifton, and Suerting was given an estate which his ' man ' Gonni had held. From this it will be seen that the lands of his men did not of necessity pass with his own.
One of the prominent features in the survey of this county is the use of the term housecarl (' huscarle '). On the housecarls of the English kings some learning has been expended, but the actual meaning of the term at the time of the Norman Conquest remains by no means clear. Mr. Freeman, who devoted an appendix to the subject, held that they were ' a standing army,' and were described, in Harold's days, as ' stippen- diarii et mercenarii.' On the other hand he knew that charters show them to have been at times grantees of land. In Domesday itself there are passages which seem to treat them as mercenary troops,[1] but when we examine the names of the Buckinghamshire ' housecarls,' we are struck by the fact that they are landowners, ' thegns ' with substantial estates, and that those, moreover, who compiled Domesday drew no distinction between the ' housecarl ' and the thegn. Of the seven men in this county whom it styles housecarls of King Edward, Burchard is, in two successive entries, styled ' huscarle regis E ' and ' teignus regis E,' while under Buckingham itself he is Burchard ' of Shenley ' (' de Senelai '). Now, as his lands went to Earl Hugh of Chester, and as his name is a rare one, we cannot hesitate to see in him that Burchard whose lands in Suffolk were obtained by Earl Hugh, and who had in that county several men commended to him. Here then we have a consider- able land owner described in one entry, and in one only, as a housecarl.
Another considerable landowner whose name meets us several times in the county is Azor ' films Toti,' who is described in one entry as a ' man ' of Queen Edith and in one other as a ' housecarl.' Azor, in addition to his own manors, had several ' men ' in Buckinghamshire, which shows him to have been of consequence. Again Ulf, whose lands here, as in Gloucestershire and Cambridgeshire, had been obtained by Robert de ' Todeni,' is here styled a housecarl, but in Cambridgeshire is a ' thegn of King Edward.' ' Tori ' or ' Thori,' who, in this county, is twice described as a housecarl of King Edward, is almost certainly identical with the man of that name who appears elsewhere within its borders as a ' man ' or ' thegn ' of that king. ' Aldene,' who had pre-
- ↑ They are even equated with ' soldarii ' in the Dorset portion of the survey.
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