who no doubt were assisted by some leading official in CHAP. XXI. each shire; and they, it appears, "Upon the oaths of the sheriffs, the Lords of each Manor, the Presby. ters of every Church, the Reves of every hundred, the bailiffs and six villans of every village, were to enquire into the name of the place, who held it in the time of King Edward, who was the present possessor, how many hides in the manor, how many carrucates in demesne, how many homagers [bound to do homage], how many villans, how many cotarii, how many servi, what freemen, how many tenants in socage, what quantity of wood, how much meadow and pasture, what mills and fish ponds, how much added or taken away, what the gross value in King Edward's time, what the present value, and how much each freemen or sockman had or has. All this was to be triply estimated. First, as the estate was held in the time of the Confessor; then, as it was bestowed by King William; and thirdly, as its value stood at the formation of the survey. The jurors, were, moreover to state, whether any advance could be made in the value." Having, with the aid of Sir Henry Ellis, stated the object which the King had in view in requiring this return, I will now refer to that portion of it which relates. to the Forest, chiefly collected from the late Mr. Larking's recent edition (which forms a valuable addition to Kentish history), premising that we shall here find Norman-French names and terms substituted for Anglo-Saxon ones. Thus, the different holdings are termed "manors," and "sheriff" substituted for "geréfa," &c. It is also necessary to state that this record contains no reference to any ecclesiastical division or boundary, and that the words "diocese" and "parish" are not to be met with in it. Sir Henry Ellis' Introduction to Domesday. That the boundary I propose to define may be better Boundary of understood, I will here insert my second map, which Mr. the Forest. Thurston has kindly prepared from the materials I have been enabled to furnish; but it is to Mr. James Elliott, of Dymchurch, that I am indebted for the tracing of the course of the Limen or Rother on the map. I will add three tables; the first containing the places which I have succeeded in tracing out which were then wholly situate within the Weald; the second, those places which were only partly within it at that time, and which the reader will find placed transversely on the map; and the third containing the places now either within, or on the borders, CHAP. XXI. which are wholly omitted in Domesday. I propose, how ever, to postpone the evidence in support of this boundary until I introduce my third and last map. But I must not here lead the reader to suppose that beyond the eight places (some of them very small) enumerated in the first list, no part of the remainder of the district was under cultivation, or had not been formed into denes ; for this would be quite at variance with what has been already advanced and supported by the testimony of Anglo-Saxon charters, showing the existence of Sandpp. 76, 85, 144. hurst, Harbourne, Newenden, Biddenden, and Surrenden, with others which cannot now be identified, long anterior to the Norman invasion. Ante, When the survey was compiled, the Forest was still in a state of transition. Denes were springing up and acquiring names in every direction; but the soil itself, it must be remembered, was even then chiefly vested in the sovereign. For instance, Milton-next-Sittingbourne was a royal Saxon vill, then called Middleton (or the Middle town of the shire), and the district now known to us as Marden (a South Eastern Railway station) was an appendage to Milton; consequently the denes and rights in the Weald which attached to it would be included under Middleton though not named, and I will presently refer to the survey in support of this statement. The same remark will also apply to the denes belonging to Bromley, Orpington, Leeds, Peckham, Lenham, the royal vill of Wye, Aldington, Chilham, Charing, Great Chart, East Farleigh, Mersham, Chartham, Eastry, &c., &c. The archbishop was the chief owner of the denes at this time, and of them Aldington (still the most extensive manor in Kent) claimed the greatest number. Without tiring the reader with enumerating other distant vills or hamlets (from this time called manors by the Normans) which enjoyed this common right before the conquest, I will state generally that if every one of the places included in the second list and inserted transversely on the map did not possess particular denes, they all participated more or less in the general advantages, which were not inconsiderable, CHAP. XXI. resulting from their contiguity to the common forest. Still a large extent of it then remained unreclaimed, and was not fenced in; but from the nature of the soil, and its reputation for growing oak, I should doubt whether any portion of it could at any time have been classed with Larking's "the 1000 acres of unproductive wood" rented at 248., Dom., p. 96. which we find in Domesday under the head of "Canterbury;" this sterility arising from a lack of pannage, the land not producing acorns or mast, which could never have existed in the Weald from the time the oak first grew there. With these remarks let me now dispose of the eight vills and manors in the following table : Table No. 1. : Places mentioned in Domesday, situate WHOLLY in the Forest or Weald. CHAP. XXI. Ante, p. 114. Larking's All the places here enumerated appear from the survey to have been held by the tenants in chief of Edward the Confessor as part of the Crown lands. I have already referred to the division of the shire into laths as peculiar to Kent, and have stated that there were seven when Domesday was compiled, now reduced to five. Of the eight places referred to in the preceding list, Belice, Benenden, Newenden, and Tiffenden were situate in Wiwart, now the Lath of Scray or Shirwinhope. Hadlow Pinpa and Tudely were and still are in Aylesford lath, and Palster was in Limowart, now the Lath of Shepway. Six of them it will be seen the King conferred on his uterine brother Odo, Bishop of Baieux, who accom panied him to England, and was created Earl of Kent. The first is Belice, of inconsiderable extent, being only one dene of half a yoke, "which remained without the division of Hugh de Montfort and lay in Belice." Mr. Larking does not venture to assign a place to this dene; it is, however, returned as being in the Hundred of Rolvenden, and we have no other reference to Rolvenden except as a hundred. The next place is Benenden, also in the Hundred of Rolvenden, which Robert de Romenel held of the Bishop of Baieux. This place had made some progress, since we referred to it as a dene in the reign of King Ethelred. Hemsted, now in this parish, is also named in the same charter as a dene. Philipott gives 66 'Binan" as his Saxon root for Benenden; "within or two-fold," as it possessed several denes. It had no doubt become of importance at this time, occupying some of the highest land in the Weald; it is returned as possessing a church. But here it may be proper to remark that in the formation of the Domesday survey there was no injunction on the jurors to make a return of churches, and some were certainly in existence which are not noticed; still, where they are referred to, the survey may be relied on. The next place is Haslow (Hadlow) in the Hundred of Littlefield, which Richard de Tonebrige held of the Bishop, and which Dom., p. 118. appears to have been an extensive district including a Ante, p. 144. Ellis' to Domesday Larking's |