Herefordshire in the Domesday Survey

Hereford was one of only 16 shire towns ranking as cities. Herefordshire at the time of the Domesday Survey appears to contain some villages that are now considered to be in Radnorshire. The hundreds in the Domesday Survey are also not the same as the medieval hundreds that survived into the 19th century. (A hundred was calculated as one hundred households in an area.)

The Domesday Survey of Herefordshire begins with a record of the customs observed in the county. At the time of the Survey 103 men lived inside and around the city wall and every dwelling paid 7½d, and 4d for the hire of horses. In August each man had to spend three days reaping at Marden and on one day had to gather hay wherever the Sheriff wished.

When the king was in the city every man without a whole dwelling had to provide an escort for the court. When the king was engaged in hunting in the county then by custom one man from every house went to stall (decoy) game in the woodland.

Inside the city there were six smiths, each of them made 120 horseshoes from the king's iron, and for these they were given 3d for each one. The smiths were exempt from any other kind of service.

There are a total of 15 different customs for Herefordshire mentioned in the Domesday Survey, all of which would most probably have been strictly adhered to. There are also a further ten customs for the dependent territory of Archenfield whose population was largely Welsh, and so lived by Welsh customs.

After the discussion of customs in the shire comes the list of landholders in Herefordshire, Archenfield and Wales. The Domesday Survey has a total of 36 different landowners for this area: these include King William, Robert, Bishop of Hereford, and four churches. Under each landowner the lands that he held are listed by the Hundred.

Three hundred and twelve separate places are mentioned in the Domesday Survey for Herefordshire. Of these 15 have very little or no information, 29 cannot be identified with modern places and 105 do appear on modern parish maps, although some are now represented as hamlets or farms.

Some villages on the modern parish map of Herefordshire, such as Abbey Dore, Kentchurch, Wacton and Brockhampton, are not mentioned in the Domesday Survey. This is because Abbey Dore and Kentchurch were not named as villages until the 12th century, and Wacton and Brockhampton until the 13th century.

The Domesday Survey had consistent ways of measuring the prosperity and population for most villages, and gives us data for each area that are easily comparable. Under most villages four recurring items are found measuring the prosperity of an area. They are:

• Hides
• Plough-teams
• Population
• Value of the area (pre- and post-1066)

The population of individual villages was also measured and the inhabitants "classified" according to their occupation, as far as possible.

The recorded population for Domesday Herefordshire is:

This gives Herefordshire a population of 4,453 at the time of the Domesday Survey (1086). The Miscellaneous category included Welshmen, Freemen, Reeves, Sergeants and Carpenters.

The population was not distributed evenly throughout Herefordshire. In the east of the county the population averaged eight people per square mile, in the west it averaged three per square mile and the north-west only one person per square mile. These figures can be compared with the distribution of plough teams in the county to build a picture of the distribution and settlement in Herefordshire. In the east of the county there were an average of five plough teams per square mile, in the west one per square mile and in the north-west fewer than one per square mile.

This distribution of settlement was caused by two separate factors. The west and north-west of the county was very unsettled, being on the Welsh border, and the threat of Welsh raids was ever present. The topography of the north and west was not conducive to supporting large numbers of people as the soil was poor and difficult to plough and cultivate.

The Domesday Survey was a very useful product of  the Normans' efficient recording. It shows the changes that had occurred in the country under its "new management". Although the major landowners were now foreign very little else had changed in the makeup of the country. In terms of villages, hundreds and regions Herefordshire was the same as it had been before 1066, but now with better organisation. The Survey was so detailed and precise that it was unmatched in Europe for many centuries, and it can tell us more than most other contemporary sources about the social makeup of England at the beginning of the medieval period.

[Original author: Miranda Greene, 2002]