THE DOMESDAY SURVEY by 'Radchen[istres], id est liberi homines T.R.E.' (fo. i66). This sug- gestive entry proves to be in perfect harmony with the survey of that abbey's Worcestershire manors (fos. 174^-175). For we there find a number of similar estates entered as having been held T.R.E., sometimes by ' liberi homines,' sometimes by riding-men. At Longdon ' there were ' nine free men (who) held 1 8 hides, and mowed for one day in the meadows of their lord, and did such service as they were bidden ' ; at Powick there were eight ' radmans ' who ' mowed for one day a year in the meadows of the lord, and did all the service that was bidden them.' As there are several entries describing the services as ' those which are performed by the other freemen,' we may infer that ' free men ' and ' radmans ' are here used indifferently. This important conclusion is confirmed by the evidence of the Worcester cartulary. Under the heading De liberis de Halleg' (Hallow in Grimley) two tenements are there entered as owing this riding-service.^ At Grimley itself, it is under De liberis that we find payments of 2d. a year ' pro equita- tura,' ^ and at Charlton it is, similarly, under De liberis de Cherletun that the payments ' pro equitatura ' occur.* Archdeacon Hale was doubtless right in identifying this service with Bracton's ' service of riding with the lord or the lady,' or ' from manor to manor.' ^ One unpublished instance, in which such service was due to the sacrist of Evesham, seems decisive on the point.* The duty, in short, was that of attendance as escort, but not, in my opinion, of military service. In addition to that exclusion of the sheriff which appears to have been deemed, in those days, a high and enviable privilege, the Bishop possessed certain rights which seem to have been independent of the special privileges belonging to the Hundred of Oswaldslow. Foremost among these was that circset to which the abbots of Pershore, West- minster, and Evesham, and indeed others, were also entitled. Domesday records the county's verdict that the Bishop was entitled at Martinmas to one (horse) load of the best grain from every hide of land belonging to the church of Worcester, whether held in free or in villein tenure (fo. 173^^). It was also the county's verdict that the church of Pershore was entitled to circset from 300 hides (of which 100 were its own and 200 belonged to the abbot of Westminster), that is, Domesday proceeds to
- Barely five miles, as the crow flies, from Deerhurst. At Deerhurst the * riding-men '
had to reap, mow, plough and harrow (fo. 166). On the great royal manor of Tewkesbury they had to plough and harrow for their lord (fo. 163). This evidence is important for Worcestershire, because at Netherton, a manor of the monks of Worcester, we find that Osbert Guidon, * for his holding, has to follow the Prior and Cellarer, and any other monks when they will, with his own horse, at their cost ; and must plough, twice in the year, half an acre, and sow it with his own seed, and must harrow, and must do three " benrip," and, moreover, must find one man to mow for one day' (Hale, lib). Archdeacon Hale thought that these were villein services, incompatible with 'equitatura,' but this was a misapprehen- sion {Ibid. p. Ixxvii.). ^ Hale's Registrum, p. 50a (cf. p. 47/'). ^ Ibid. pp. 44^, 44^. * Ibid. yib. * Ibid. p. Ixxii. " 'In Haccheslench [Atch Lench] . . . Idem Osbertus tenet dimidiam hidam ut equitet cum sacrista in equo proprio' (Cott. MS. Vesp. B. XXIV. fo. I3<^. 251
