The tale of the Northmen’s invasions of England could be matched by the tale of their invasions of the northern coasts of France. Early in the tenth century a Viking known among his people as Rolf the Ganger^[20] made a descent upon Rouen and entered into a treaty with Charles the Simple, King of Paris, by which a large tract of land around Rouen was ceded to him and his followers, in return for their aid against Charles’ enemies.

Such was the beginning of the province of Northern France known in later history as Normandy. After forty years of sea-roving Rolf settled down to rule his new and fertile dukedom; and as with the Northmen in England, so with him and his men in France. The Northmen married wives of their new country, and their children grew up to speak the mother’s tongue rather than the father’s. Thus the descendants of heathen Northmen became Christian Frenchmen.

To Rolf the Ganger’s dukedom there succeeded in turn William Longsword, Richard the Fearless, Richard the Good, Robert the Devil, and William, whom his enemies called William the Bastard—‘the Tanner’s Grandson’—but who was destined to become famous as William the Conqueror of England.

How Harold of England, after hearing of William’s landing on the coast of Sussex, marched southward to his death at Hastings, and how William of Normandy was crowned King in his stead at Westminster on Christmas Day in the same year, does not concern us here. But what we are concerned with is the course of events that led to William’s coming north to the city of York.

The events of the last three months of the fateful year 1066 by no means proved that England was a conquered country. True, the Witena-gemōt had accepted William as their king; but that was only because there was no one else fit to lead the Saxon forces, and because Anglo-Danes and Saxons mistrusted each other. Edwin of Mercia and his brother Morcar submitted to William and were allowed to retain their earldoms. Oswulf, who now ruled Northumbria, did not submit, so William appointed a certain Copsige^[21] to supplant him. Copsige came north to dispossess Oswulf, and was immediately slain.

In 1067, during William’s absence in Normandy, rebellions broke out in the south and west of England; and when the King returned, he began the conquest of the western portions of the country. Exeter submitted after a siege lasting eighteen days, but no sooner had the western rebellion been subdued than Mercia and Northumbria were in revolt.

Next year the King marched north and reached York, the inhabitants of which rather unexpectedly surrendered their city; and on William’s departure he left William de Malet, one of his Norman knights, in charge of it. But after a few months the men of York again rose in revolt and Malet was hard pressed, although he succeeded in holding out till relieved by the King.

All over England these rebellions were going on. But none was more than partly successful; and for the reason that ‘Englishmen could not agree to act together. One district rose at one time and one at another. Some were for Sweyn, some for Edgar, some for the sons of Harold; Edwin and Morcar were for themselves. So there was no common action against William, and the land was lost bit by bit.’

In the autumn of 1069 it seemed as if there really was to be made in the North of England a united effort to throw off the yoke of the Frenchmen. Sweyn Ulfsson, King of Denmark, sent a large fleet of ships into the Humber under the command of Jarl Asbiorn, his brother. Outside the walls of York the Danish shipmen were joined by Edgar the Aetheling, by Gospatric, the dispossessed successor of Oswulf, and by Jarl Waltheof, Siward’s son.

Then began a second siege of York. The French garrison, under William de Malet and Gilbert of Gaunt, retreated to the two wooden castles which William had caused to be erected, and set fire to the portions of the city surrounding these in order to give themselves greater security. For two days the flames raged, destroying many houses and the Minster of St. Peter. Meanwhile the allies entered the city. Then the Normans attempted a sally from their castles, but unsuccessfully. Their forces were cut to pieces, and William de Malet and Gilbert of Gaunt were taken prisoners.

So far all had gone well with the armies of Jarl Asbiorn and Jarl Waltheof, and had they only held the city when taken and awaited the arrival of King William, they would have had every chance of repeating their success. But a fatal dissension once more broke out, and Asbiorn’s men went back to their ships and sailed first to North Lincolnshire and then to Holderness, while Waltheof withdrew his men to the marshes between the Trent and the Ouse.

For the third time King William marched north to York; and this time he determined on vengeance. ‘Par splendeur Dex,’ he swore that he would utterly root out the Northumbrian people; and in fulfilment of his oath he carried out that ‘Wasting of the North’ which changed the fertile Plain of York into a desolate waste. For sixty miles north of York every town and village was sacked and burnt, every inhabitant slain or driven out, all farming-stock and farming-implements destroyed, and nothing spared save only what belonged to St. John of Beverley. Then, having wreaked his revenge, William caused himself to be re-crowned at York, and there he kept his Christmas feast.

The system followed out by William the Conqueror after his subjugation of a district was everywhere the same. Lands were taken from their English owners and given to the King’s Norman followers, while strong castles were built to afford protection to the Norman lords.

Thus Drogo de Bevrere, a Flemish knight who had married the King’s niece, was rewarded for his services with the Isle of Holderness, and built himself a castle at Skipsea, where the earthworks of a long-dead chieftain were still standing. No remains of Drogo’s castle now exist, nor have we in the East Riding the remains of any Norman castle such as those existing at Knaresborough, Helmsley, Pontefract, Scarborough, York, and elsewhere in the other Ridings of Yorkshire.

With this parcelling out of the land among William’s Norman followers there became fixed two principles on which the whole ‘Feudal System’ was based:—

(1) All land belonged to the King by virtue of his conquest of the country;

(2) All land was held in return for services rendered.

Under the Feudal System the King would make a large grant of land to one of his followers, who thus became a tenant-in-chief of the King. This tenant-in-chief would sub-divide his land among his particular followers, each of whom might sub-divide his portion. Thus Drogo de Bevrere was a tenant-in-chief, and one of his tenants was a certain Lanbert, who held lands at Sutton ‘two miles long and a half a mile broad.’ Drogo, Earl of Holderness, was a vassal of the King; Lanbert, a vassal of Drogo.

For these lands no regular rent was paid. Instead, there was the obligation of military service, each holder of land being bound to serve the King in war for forty days every year as his services were required. This service had to be performed at the vassal’s own cost, and with proper equipment. By this means the King could always be assured of an army equipped at short notice, and at no cost to himself.

In addition to this military service there were money payments to be made at certain irregular intervals. An aid was due from a vassal to his overlord on each of three occasions:—

(1) The knighting of the lord’s eldest son; (2) The marrying of his eldest daughter; (3) The ransoming of his own person.

Of these occasions the first and second would, as a rule, occur only once in a vassal’s life-time, while the third might not occur at all. For all tenants-in-chief it did occur when King Richard I. had to be ransomed from his enemy, the Emperor Henry VI., into whose hands he had happened to fall. The monks of the Abbey of Meaux, being tenants-in-chief, then found themselves called upon to pay, as their share of the total ransom of 150,000 marks, the sum of 300 marks; to raise which they were compelled to sell their stock of wool and their church plate.

On the death of a vassal and the succession of his heir, another money payment became due to the vassal’s overlord. This was known as a relief. Again, if on a vassal’s death his heir or heiress had not yet come of age, his estate passed for the time being into the hands of the overlord, who managed it and took the profits. This right was known as wardship, and it might be rather dangerous for the ward.

Thus, in the early years of the thirteenth century, Thomas, the parson of Routh, held certain lands under William de Stuteville, the lord of the manor. Thomas died, and the lord of the manor claimed wardship over his young daughter Agnes. But before Agnes had come of age, William de Stuteville died also, and the wardship passed into the hands of his widow Cecilia. Unfortunately for Agnes her new guardian was not overburdened with principles of honour; for, having two daughters of her own—who were, we may suppose, not sufficiently good-looking to find husbands readily—she offered with them as dowry the lands of Agnes. Thus two lucky bridegrooms, Stephen of Pokthorpe and Henry of Hutton, were enriched by Dame Cecilia, each with one-half of the lands of Agnes, the parson’s daughter. And poor Agnes never succeeded in getting her lands back, though she tried her best.

The various money payments due to a vassal’s overlord depended as to their amount on the value of the estate held. Therefore, in order that the King should know exactly what sums were due to him from his tenants-in-chief, he caused a great survey of England to be made. The vastness of the undertaking may be gauged by the fact that each estate in all the counties of England except Northumberland, Cumberland, Westmorland, Durham, and Monmouth—which last was then reckoned as a Welsh county—was to be reported on by the King’s officers, who were instructed to make enquiries as to its value and to record the result of their enquiries.

These officers were to set down the area of each estate, great or small, the area of that part of it which was ploughed land, the area of that part which was grass land, the name of its holder, the name of its holder in the last year of the reign of King Edward the Confessor, the amount of stock and of farming-implements on it, the number and condition of the people living on it, its annual value in the time of King Edward, and its annual value at the time of the investigation—the last two items being the most important of all.

In this manner was constructed what is known as The Domesday Book—the book by which a judgment could be made as to the amount of the money payments due to the King from each of his tenants-in-chief. The work was planned at the Witena-gemōt held at Christmas 1085, and was carried out during the following year.

The Domesday Book is one of the most valuable historical records possessed by the nation, and much information as to the England of 1086 has been gleaned from its parchment leaves. The entries in it are of course in Latin, and the following translation of the portion dealing with the manor of Patrington will serve as an example of the facts recorded in it.

In Patrictone with the four berewicks Wistede, Halsam, Torp, Toruelestorp, there are thirty-five carucates and a half, and two oxgangs and two parts of an oxgang to be taxed. There is land to thirty-five ploughs.

This manor was, and is, belonging to the Archbishop of York.

There are now in the demesne two ploughs and eight villeins and sixty-three bordars, having thirteen ploughs. There are six sokemen with two villeins and twenty bordars, having five ploughs and a half. There are thirty-two acres of meadow there. Two knights have six carucates of the land of this manor; and two clerks two carucates and three oxgangs, and the third part of an oxgang. They have there four sokemen and five villeins, and three bordars with five ploughs.

In the time of King Edward the value was thirty pounds, at present ten pounds and five shillings.

Arable land three miles long and one mile and a half broad.

All this reads very strangely to us living in the twentieth century. Put into present-day language it would read something like the following:—

The manor of Patrington, with the neighbouring hamlets of Winestead, Halsham, [Welwick] Thorp, and Tharlesthorp,^[22] measures 4300 acres,^[23] and its thorough cultivation would provide work for thirty-five teams of oxen, reckoning eight oxen to each team.

It belonged to the Archbishop of York in the reign of King Edward the Confessor, and is still held by him.

Attached to the lands of the manor-house there are eight serfs who have among them sixteen oxen, and sixty-three cottagers, who own 104 oxen. There are also six small farmers who have under them two serfs and twenty cottagers, and work forty-four oxen. Parts of the manor lands are held by two knights and two parsons. The former are tenants of 720 acres, the latter of 290 acres. On their lands there are four small farmers, three cottagers and five serfs, possessing among them forty oxen.

The land on which wheat, barley and oats are grown measures three miles by one and a half miles, and there are thirty-two acres of meadow land.

In King Edward’s time the annual value of the manor was £600, but is now only £205.^[24]

The value of the manor of Patrington was, in 1086, only just over one-third of its value twenty-five years earlier. This is one example of the results of the ‘Wasting of the North.’ Others are to be found in the records given of the manors of Burstwick and Kilnsea, each of which had been worth fifty-six pounds, but was then worth only ten pounds. The manors of Withernsea and Hornsea had similarly decreased in value from fifty-six pounds to six pounds. All these belonged in 1086 to Drogo de Bevrere, Lord of Holderness. The manor of Beeford had experienced a still greater decrease in value; for it had sunk from twenty pounds to ten shillings. Others again, such as estates at Barmston, Drypool, Routh, and Sigglesthorne are recorded by the ominous word ‘waste.’ Such entries tell a very sure tale of the effects of King William’s vengeance.

On the map on page 93 are shown most of the manors and a few of the hamlets recorded in that part of the Domesday Book which deals with the Holderness division of Yorkshire. In many cases the spelling is very quaint; but most of the names are recognisable if we remember that U and V are different forms of the same letter, and that our letter W was then what, according to its name, it ought still to be. We must remember also that the men who took down the records were Frenchmen, who found it difficult in many cases to pronounce the names they heard the English witnesses use, and who had to spell these names as best they could according to their sound.

For more than nine hundred years the Domesday Survey remained the only survey made of English lands as a whole, and not till 1910 was an attempt made to compile the second Domesday Book. In that year commissioners started on the same task as was performed by the King’s officers in the year 1086; and the task has been undertaken for the same purpose—to enable the King’s taxes to be gathered in correctly.