sheriff, who is charged with making use of half a hide, to give it as pay- ment to the woman who taught his daughter embroidery, [1] though per- haps only for the term of his shrievalty. In Berkshire, of which also he was sheriff, there is much fuller testimony against him,[2] and Henry de Ferrers, who obtained his lands, is alleged to hold among them parcels of Crown demesne.[3] His history, however, belongs more especially to that county. In Hertfordshire Ilbert, a Norman sheriff, seems to be charged with such an alienation of land. [4]
To the tenure by Ralf Taillebois of the office of sheriff we have probably obscure allusions in the exchange of half Risborough for Ellesborough ' contra Radulfum Talgebosch,'[5] and in his erection of a mill on Bertram de Verdon's land at Farnham Royal.
Although Buckingham occupies in the Survey the remarkable and separate position to which Professor Maitland has drawn attention as distinctive of county towns, its quasi-rural character is strongly marked. Indeed, it is surveyed in the same way as the purely rural manors of the king, save that, in the place of the usual villeins, twenty-six ' burgesses ' precede the bordars and the serfs, and that its church is entered as that of the ' borough.' But the list of burgesses and their lords which follows this survey is similar to that which meets us in other capitals of shires. As the total of these burgesses is twenty-seven one of whom had passed to the king with Earl Aubrey's land we are left in doubt as to whether or not they represent the above ' twenty-six burgesses.' Probably, however, the latter dwelt on the king's land and should, therefore, be reckoned separately. With its usual disregard for uniformity Domesday sometimes gives us the value of these burghal holdings under the town itself, and sometimes under the manors to which they were deemed appurtenant. The former course is adopted here, and the double payments recorded should be carefully observed. From twenty-three of the burgesses the king received, in unequal amounts, sixty-six pence, while twenty-six were worth to their lords thirty-one shillings in all. But the amounts varied, in proportion doubt- less with the value of their houses, from the twenty-six pence received by Earl Hugh and the Bishop of Coutances to the sevenpence which was all that a burgess paid to Maino the Breton or Hugh de Bolbec.
Apart from the houses in the county town held by the lords of Buckinghamshire manors, it is noteworthy that at Oxford there was one house, worth thirty pence, belonging to (Princes) Risborough, and two, worth only four pence, that belonged to Twyford.[6] Both these manors were near the Oxfordshire border, but the only relative entry in their own county is the mention of a burgess at Oxford, appurtenant
- ↑ ' habuit ipsa dimidiam hidam quam Godricus vicecomes ei concessit, quamdiu vicecomes esset, ut ilia doceret filiam ejus Aurifrisium operari.'
- ↑ ' dimidia hida fuit de firma regis, sed tempore Godrici vicecomitis fuit foris missa. Hoc attestatur tota scira' (fo. 57b).
- ↑ Ibid, passim, and fo. 6ob. : ' accepit ipse Godricus de firma regis unam virgatam terra.'
- ↑ 'Quam terram dederat Ilbertus cuidam suo militi dum esset vicecomes' (fo. 133).
- ↑ See p. 209 above.
- ↑ Domesday Book, fo. 154.
221
