Domesday Book 1086

Poynton does not appear in the Domesday Book. It may possibly have been included in Earl Hugh's demesne manor of Adlington.

Translation

Adlington:   

The same Earl holds EDULVINTONE. Earl EDWIN held it. There are iv. hides and a half rateable to the gelt. The land is x. carucates. There are ii. radmans and vi. vileins and iii. bordars with iii. carucates. There are xxi. areas of meadow. A wood xi. leagues long and ii. broad, and there are vii. hays and iv. aeries of hawks.

In King Edwards time it was worth vii. pounds, now xx. shillings. (The Earl) found it waste.

Poynton and Worth villages or settlements were originally part of Macclesfield Forest and gradually became centres of agricultural and forestry activities and consisted of several small hamlets such as Poynton Village, Poynton Green, Midway and Hepley. There were also isolated farms or folds, for example Lostock Hall, Mill Bank and Barlow.

Doomsday Book Entry for Adlington and Explanation

The same Earl [i.e. Hugh, Earl of Chester] holds EDULVINTONE [Adlington]. Earl EDWIN [Edwin, Earl of Mercia Son of Earl Algar of East Anglia. Rebellious earl, killed by his own men, 1071] held it. There are iv. hides and a half [4½ hides = 540 acres – probably ] rateable to the geld [Periodic tax, first raised for the Danish wars, at a number of pence per hide] The land is x.carucates [10 Carucates Measurement of land in Danish counties, the equivalent of a hide. So, 10 Carucates = 1,200 acres.] There are ii. radmans [2 Riders, Riding-men – Riding escort for a lord, chiefly recorded in the Welsh Marches] and vi. villeins [6 Villagers = Members of the peasant class with most land] and iii. Bordars [3 bordars = smallholders] with iii. Carucates [360 acres]. There are xxi. acres [21 acres] of meadow. A wood xi. Leagues [11 leagues] long and ii. [2 leagues] broad, and there are vii. hays [7 hays = enclosures for trapping deer] and iv. [4] aeries of hawks. In King Edward [the Confessor]’s time it was worth vii. Pounds [£7], now xx. shillings [20/-]. (The Earl) found it waste. [Probably because of the “Harrying of the North”. Cheshire, along with much of the North resisted the Conquest and was punished with a “scorched earth policy”.] 

Hugh, Earl of Chester, also Earl of Avaranches. Also called Hugh Lupus (The Wolf) and Hugh the Fat. Nephew of William I, sister married Count William d'Eu; daughter, Matilda, married Count Robert of Mortain. Virtual sovereign of Cheshire. Captured Anglesea from the Welsh, 1098; became so fat he could barely crawl; died 1101. Holdings in 20 counties. 

Hide Latin, hida. The hide was both a unit of assessment and a peasant holding unit found in most counties outside the Danelaw. The word hide ultimately derives from the Old English hid, meaning the amount of land which would support one household, notionally 120 acres in most counties, though hides of 40, 48 and 60 acres have been identified elsewhere, particularly in the south-west. However many fiscal acres a hide contained, these would bear a variable relationship to the customary acres on the ground. Since customary acres were normally composed of scattered furlong strips whose size varied according to the nature of the soils and the shape of the fields, hides could vary in size from area to area, or even within the same manor, however many acres they contained. Although the original meaning of the hide was the amount of land needed to support one peasant household, by the eleventh century peasant holdings of this size were uncommon, the virgate being the norm for villagers. The detailed evidence of the Domesday text for Middlesex does, however, show that individual peasants still occasionally had holdings of this size. Despite variations in size, however, individual hides could, like other peasant holdings, remain fixed in size over generations, even centuries, their integrity maintained by the power of the lord or the customs of the manor. They provided the stable base for both the manorial and the assessment systems. 

Geld Latin, geldum. Geldum, translated as tax in the Phillimore edition, is more commonly (if inaccurately) known as the Danegeld. References to tax occur in the great majority of Domesday entries; the word Danegeld occurs only once (LIN S1). The geld originated as an 'army-tax', instituted by Aethelred the Unready to pay Scandinavian mercenaries employed against the Vikings. Later it became an annual tax to finance the army and navy of the Anglo-Danish kings, levied on the hides (or carucates) at which estates were assessed for military and other services. It is often confused with the tributes levied to buy off Viking invaders, payments which, if the chroniclers were to be believed, were far more onerous than the geld and on one occasion exceeded the total value assigned by Domesday Book to the whole of England. As Maitland aptly observed in Domesday Book and beyond (1897): Unless we are prepared to bring against the fathers of English history a charge of repeated, wanton, and circumstantial lying, we shall think of the Danegeld of Aethelred [the Unready]'s reign and of Canute's as of an impost so heavy that it was fully capable of transmuting a whole nation. He then added: William [the Conqueror] might well regard the right to levy a geld as the most precious jewel in his English crown. To secure a due and punctual payment of it was worth a gigantic effort, a survey such as had never been made and a record such as had never been penned since the grandest days of the old Roman Empire. For ... the assessment of the geld sadly needed reform 

Carucate Latin, carucata. The carucate was both a unit of assessment and a peasant landholding unit found in most of the Danelaw counties. The word carucate is derived from caruca, Latin for a plough. Since the standard Domesday plough team could notionally plough 120 acres in an agricultural year, the carucate was a nominal 120 acres. These, of course, were fiscal acres which could bear a variable relationship to the customary acres on the ground. Since customary acres were normally composed of scattered furlong strips whose size varied according to the nature of the soils and the shape of the fields, carucates could vary in size from area to area, or even within the same manor. Despite variations in size, however, individual carucates could, like other peasant holdings, remain fixed in size over generations, even centuries, their integrity maintained by the power of the lord or the customs of the manor. They provided the stable base for both the manorial and the assessment systems. 

Riding Man Latin, radman. There appears to be no essential difference between a rider and a riding man (radchenistre). With four exceptions, all riders and riding men are found in the five counties of circuit 5, along the Welsh border. Their riding duties as escorts or messengers were analogous to those performed by freemen in Cambridgeshire and it seems probable that radmen were a class of freemen as, indeed, they were described in one entry in Gloucestershire (GLS19,2). Their resources in land and teams were comparable. There was also a marked resemblance between their duties and the customary services due from the drengs in circuit 6 and from a class of free men in Wessex described in a late Anglo-Saxon estate survey 

Villein Latin, villanus. Villanus, translated as villager in the Phillimore edition, is sometimes rendered as villein. Villagers formed the largest group among the peasantry, over 40% of the recorded population. They were found in every county and never form less than 30% of the population in the counties of Great Domesday, even in those counties with substantial numbers of free peasants. In many counties, they constitute a half, two-thirds, or an even higher proportion of the total. In economic terms, the villagers were distinguishable from Freemen or freemen. They were the most substantial group among the unfree peasantry, possessing on average 30 acres of land and two plough oxen. 

Bordar Latin Bordarius, translated as smallholder in the Phillimore edition, is sometimes rendered as bordar. Smallholders formed the second largest group among the peasantry, constituting almost a third of the recorded population. They were recorded in every county. On average, they possessed 5 acres of land and might have a share in the villagers' plough teams, though their holdings could be more meagre. In some counties, they are difficult to distinguish from Cottagers or cottars, who normally possessed no more than a garden. It has been suggested that high concentrations of bordars among the population might indicate areas of economic opportunity and expansion either in land clearance or urban development. 

Acre Measurement of land used in Domesday mainly for pasture, meadowland and woodland, which varied from region to region 

League Latin, leuca. Like many Domesday measures, there is no certainly about the extent of the league, or even whether it was a linear or areal unit. Though there may normally have been 12 furlongs to the league, for instance, it has been argued that the Wiltshire league was 15 furlongs long, that of Worcestershire only four. The league also appears sometimes to have been used as a synonym for the mile (which does not occur in Great Domesday), and vice versa. Many Domesday statements imply that the league, like the furlong, could be a measure of area. 

Hay Latin, haia. Haia, sometimes rendered as hay, is translated as both 'enclosure' and 'hedged enclosure' in the Phillimore edition. The term is first recorded in Domesday Book The haia was an enclosure formed by a hedge of trees, designed to trap or corral wild animals, usually deer, during the hunt. A number of Domesday entries refer to the enclosures 'where wild animals were caught' (eg, WOR 18,4), others to enclosures where the animals were kept (HEF29,11). Large numbers of enclosures are recorded in Domesday Book, all but one (which may be an error) in circuit 5, the majority of these in Cheshire and Shropshire. In part, this is no doubt another example of the eccentricities of the Domesday commissioners since hunting enclosures certainly existed elsewhere. However, it is noticeable that a high proportion of enclosures are associated with Domesday waste, which was extensive along the Welsh march. It may be that this waste had encouraged the creation of disproportionate numbers of enclosures. 

Waste Latin vasta, Holdings described as waste paid no tax though their tax assessment was often the only piece of information recorded about them. Domesday Book records large numbers of such manors, the great majority of which had no recorded value or human or animal resources. If these manors were, in fact, untaxed because they were uninhabited and uncultivated, then the destruction wrought by the Norman Conquest, particularly in the infamous 'harrying of the North' in 1069, was on a scale that almost defies belief. Indeed, many medieval historians cannot credit that mediaeval armies could wreak such destruction and have sought alternative explanations of the term waste. It has been variously argued that waste signified manorial re-organisation, some form of tax break, or merely a confession of ignorance by the Domesday commissioners when unable to determine details of population and other manorial resources. Despite these doubts, however, the commmon-sense interpretation that waste means what it says is the most plausible. The distribution of waste both before and after the Conquest matches almost exactly the areas known to have been those of greatest military activity in those periods; and all the chronicle sources agree upon the savagery of the punishment inflicted on Yorkshire and adjacent counties after the rebellion of 1069. The most vivid description of the destruction of Yorkshire is recorded by Ordericus Vitalis. Though a late source, Ordericus based his account on a lost portion of the contemporary biography of the Conqueror by William of Poitiers. Ordericus felt so strongly about the evil of what William had done that he told the story twice. On the first occasion, he reported: He cut down many in his vengeance; destroyed the lairs of others; harried the land, and burnt homes to ashes. Nowhere else had William shown such cruelty ... In his anger he commanded that all crops and herds, chattels and food of every kind should be brought together and burned to ashes with consuming fire, so that the whole region north of the Humber might be stripped of all means of sustenance. In consequence so serious a scarcity was felt in England, and so terrible a famine fell upon the humble and defenceless populace, that more than 100,000 Christian folk of both sexes, young and old, perished of hunger (Ecclesiastical history, ed. Marjorie Chibnall, vol. 2, pp 230-33) The second story portrayed the Conqueror on his death-bed, haunted by the memory of his savagery: I ... caused the death of thousands by starvation and war, especially in Yorkshire ... In a mad fury I descended on the English of the North like a raging lion, and ordered that their homes and crops and all their equipment and furnishings should be burnt at once and their great flocks and herds of sheep and cattle slaughtered everywhere. So I chastised a great multitude of men and women with the lash of starvation and, alas! was the cruel murderer of many thousands, both young and old (Ecclesiastical history, vol. 4, pp 94-95) The distribution of waste in Yorkshire in 1086 tells the same story. Sixteen years after the harrying, Yorkshire may still have contained only 25% of the population and plough teams of 1066, some 80,000 oxen and 150,000 people fewer than had been there on the day that King Edward 'was alive and dead'.

Thank you Howard J.Green of the Local History Society