HISTORY NOTES
Crick and the Domesday Book
The earliest detailed written records for nearly every town and village in England are to be found in what we
know as the Domesday Book, and Crick is no exception. It is, however, a monumental record, and before the
information within it can be properly understood, the book needs to be described and seen in relation to its
background. Although it has been the object of intensive study for 200 years, giving rise to a vast literature, the
Domesday Book contains many difficulties and secrets, which are still being unraveled.
In its present state, it is actually in two volumes; the first and larger of the two is known as the Great or
Exchequer Domesday, and the second, being smaller, is called the Little Domesday. The Exchequer volume
covers most of England, county by county, except the 4 northern counties which were never finished and the 3
East Anglian counties. It contains 332 folios or sheets, that are 764 pages, made of calf vellum, written entirely
by one man in very abbreviated Latin, and in double columns. Headings are written in red, initial letters are
decorated in the same colour, and a red line is drawn through every place-name, but this all shows as black on
reproduction. The Little Domesday deals with the three counties of East Anglia, on 450 sheepskin pages, and is
a much more detailed record than the Exchequer volume. It is written in single column by a great number of
different scribes, but without rubrication (writing in red).
The entry for Crick, spelt CREC, is to be found in the Exchequer Domesday under Northamptonshire, at the foot
of the left-hand column on the dorse or back of folio 227. A full-size facsimile reproduction of the relevant part
is given here, with a. translation on the page opposite. The Crick entry occupies the last three lines of the page,
but before discussing it in detail, some explanation as to exactly what the Domesday Book is, and why and how
it was made, will help considerably.
There are three terms which will be encountered frequently; 'geld’, 'hide' and 'hundred’. The word 'geld' is
derived from 'gold', and means a tax payment, or a tax assessment or a tax levy, depending upon how it is used.
A 'hide' is usually supposed to have been an area of land which could support a (Saxon) family, but very early it
became an (almost) arbitrary unit for calculating tax, in effect a rating valuation. It was in later years taken as
equivalent generally to 120 acres of land, which could be divided into quarters called 'virgates' of 30 acres each.
In the reign of Edward the Elder, or perhaps of Aethelstan, about 920-930 AD, the shires of England were reorganised into what we might regard as rural districts called 'Hundreds', with some manor, often royal, as the
administrative centre. The name 'hundred' was given to such a district because the area was assessed as 100
hides as a basis for taxation and payment of dues. The figure of 100 was broken down and shared among all of
the towns and villages in that area, each place being given its quota. There were some divisions assessed at 200
hides, known as double hundreds, and others called 1½ hundreds which carried assessment of 150 hides. The
Guilsborough district in which Crick lies was one of the latter, and the village was rated at 3¾ hides. Thus at the
standard rate of 2 shillings to the hide, Crick had to pay 7s.6d. geld.
In 1084, William I imposed a very heavy geld of 6 shillings to the hide. In order to raise enough money for his
administration, and this was roughly equivalent to a third of the income from the land of a village. There was
widespread evasion, and in many cases it could not be paid fully, so that in the next year an inquiry was begun,
especially into evasion. Re-assessments were made in some counties, but with no easement of the burden. The
problem was intensified at the beginning of 1085 by an impending invasion by King Cnut II of Denmark, who
had some claim to the Throne of England, and who had a huge fleet prepared to cross the North Sea. William
was in Normandy at the time, so he returned to England "with so large an army of horsemen and foot, from
France and Brittany, as never before had sought this land". This force was distributed throughout the kingdom
and kept in readiness, but they had to be fed and housed largely at the expense of the local landholders. The
maintenance of such a large force was inevitably heavy, and William had to seek means of raising geld once
more. Fortunately for England, Cnut II was assassinated before he could start on his enterprise, but William
could not relax his precautions immediately.
He therefore summoned his Great Council to Gloucester at Christmas, 1085, where he had "much thought and
very deep discussion" with his counselors on the subject of revenue. As a result, two overlapping surveys were
initiated. In the first, "he sent men all over England into every shire and had them find out how many hundred
hides there were in the shire, and what land and cattle the king himself had in the country, and what dues he
ought to have in 12 months in the shire". In the second, "he had a record made of how much land his
archbishops had, and his abbots and his earls.... and what or how much everybody had.... in land and cattle, and
how much money it was worth". The intention was to miss not a single acre, or ox, cow or pig in the record.
Thus, the purpose of the surveys can be seen as threefold. First, to make a record of the possession and transfer
of land; next, to make an assessment of the annual value of the estates; finally, to provide a new basis for raising
taxes more efficiently and effectively. Questions about the possession of land were frequent, and were settled by
juries of 4 Englishmen and 4 Frenchmen summoned from the appropriate hundred who had the requisite local
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knowledge. The records of the inquiries from the hundreds were assembled by the county, and then into groups
or "circuits' of 4 or 5 counties, and copies of the circuit records were then dispatched to the exchequer at
Winchester. There, much of the minute detail was ruthlessly pruned away before being written up county by
county in an abbreviated form by just one clerk - an immense task. Modern research points towards a royal
chaplain named Samson, who later was made Bishop of Worcester, as being most likely the clerk concerned.
The final result was the Great or Exchequer Domesday, so-called because it was written at the Winchester
exchequer, but apparently because of the pressure of time, the East Anglian returns were not incorporated into
the final form, so that the Little Domesday appears to be the Eastern circuit summary as received at Winchester.
The word 'Domesday1 is not to be found in the Book which carries no title. The earliest record of the term is of
about 1180, when Richard fitz Nigel, the king's treasurer wrote, "This book is called by the natives 'Domesday',
that is, metaphorically speaking, the day of judgment". It was also known as the Book of Winchester. In the
Exchequer Domesday, the counties were originally made up into gatherings or 'booklets' of 8 sheets or 16 pages,
each county filling one or more as needed. At some time later, they were made up into a single volume and
bound. The Little Domesday on the other hand was made up as a single volume and written straight through.
Nine months after the Great Council at Gloucester, William left England for the last time to go to Normandy, in
September 1086, and the survey was completed by then as far as it could be. A year later, William died there.
To carry out such a detailed inquiry and complete the writing-up in 9 months seems an incredible achievement
even by modern standards. It was made easier, however, because the machinery for making such a survey,
although not in such close detail, was already in existence, and had been in use at least since the days of Edward
the Confessor. We have a sufficient number of parts of geld surveys to make this quite clear, and there is the
Northamptonshire Survey, usually known as the Geld Roll, of about 1076, for our part of the country. In fact,
the Domesday Book incorporated some of these earlier lists, and was actually based on them. Thus, not only is
the Domesday Book a starting point for working forward in time, but it is a very valuable link with Anglo-Saxon
England, so that it is possible to glean some quite valuable information concerning Crick at least in the reign of
Edward the Confessor.
The entries for many places are to be found on several pages of the Domesday Book, because they were
comprised of two or more manors or parcels of land divided amongst a number of landholders. In the case of
Crick however, it was a single undivided manor belonging to one man, so that there is just the one entry. The
information is condensed into three lines, which may seem very little, but as the translation shows, it reveals a
great deal about the village. It is a pity that all of the data about the animal stock had to be excised, as well as
names of people such as the sokemen, which Little Domesday shows to have been originally included in the
returns in the cases of the East Anglian villages. As the facsimile shows, the Crick entry is added at the foot of
the column, and in order to get it all in, the handwriting is slightly smaller than that of the rest of the page, and it
exceeds the standard width of the column. The right-hand column (not shown) finishes level with the fourth line
from the bottom, just above the Crick entry, which confirms that Crick was written in after the page had been
completed.
These late additions are a common feature of the Exchequer Domesday, and in a number of examples the reason
is given that there was dispute concerning the tenure of the land, or some necessary information had not been
sent in. In the case of Crick, it is reasonably certain that there was an argument or uncertainty about the
ownership, because the same tenant-in-chief, Geoffrey de Wirce, was involved in cases over several of his
manors in Lincolnshire.
The tenant-in-chief who held Crick was Godefridus or Geoffrey de Wirce, properly and later called Geoffrey de
la Guerche. He originated from the borders of the provinces of Anjou and Brittany in France, where he held
considerable property both in Anjou, which was in the Angevin dukedom, and Brittany in the Breton territory.
His 'caput1 or chief seat was a place called la Guerche on the Angevin side, hence his title. He was a follower or
a knight of William I, but whether he was actually involved in the 1066 invasion, or came over later is uncertain.
He married an Anglo-Saxon heiress named Aelfgifu (Alveva), so that he must have been a man acceptable to the
Anglo-Saxon society, and the marriage certainly was one way in which he could inherit estates in this country
without friction. A well-known foundation charter concerning Monks Kirby shows that at least by 1077 he was
married and was in possession of his wife's lands, but he died by 1091 without leaving an heir.
E. W. Timmins
Copied by J Goodger in 2005 from Crick News Summer 1979
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TRANSLATION OF DOMESDAY TEXT FOR CRICK
XLVII LAND OF GOISFRIDUS (Geoffrey) DE WIRCE
In GISLEBURG (Guilsborough) Hundred and a Half:
Goisfridus de Wirce holds of the king 4 hides in WELLESFORD (Welford) and
Alfridus (Alfred) (holds them) of him.
There is land for 8 ploughs.
In demesne there are 2 (ploughteams), and 2 serfs, and 1 bondwoman, and 12
villeins, with priest, and 2 bordars, they have 4 ploughs.
There (are) 20 acres of meadow.
To this Manor belong 2½ virgates of land in ESSEBI (Cold Ashby) .
There is land for 1 plough and ¼ virgate of land in ETENDONE (Elkington). There are 2 bordars rendering 22
pence.
In STOFOLD (Stotfold) Hundred:
To this Manor belong 2½ hides in SOLEBI (Sulby). There is land for 5 ploughs. It is waste.
The whole in the time of king Edward (the Confessor) was valued at 20 shillings.
Now (it is worth) 60 shillings.
LEURIC (Leofric) held (the manor) freely in the time of King Edward.
The same Goisfridus holds in CREC (Crick) 4 hides less 1 virgate of land.
There is land for -8 ploughs.
In demesne are 3 ploughteams and 4 serfs and 17 villeins with a priest and
6 bordars, they have 5 ploughs.
There (are) 12 acres of meadow.
It was valued at 30 shillings. Now £4.10s.
To this land are attached 4 sokemen who render 10 pence.
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The 'Exchequer’ volume of the Domesday Book and Its ironbound chest.
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