Domesday Middenshire

The Domesday survey was King William's way of ensuring that a permanent record was made of who held what land, how many men worked it, what it produced, and, most important to the King, how much it was worth to him. Astonishingly, the entries for Middenshire survive. They were ripped from Great Domesday in 1415 at the time of the ostracism, and subsequent rebindings had eradicated any trace of their former presence. It is almost certain, therefore, that the Domesday entry was one of the documents salvaged by Geoffrey Thuck. Here, by way of example, is the entry for Pendlebury:

Gervase Vert holds Pendlebury from the King. In lordship 3 ploughs; 30 villagers with 15 ploughs; 3 smallholders with 2 ploughs; a mudder 1 virgate. Harold the Saltmaker had 3 virgates before 1066, now nothing. Then, 18 slaves, now 20. Elmo holds 1 hide which belongs to the church. Value before 1066, 25s, later and now, 15s.

Not surprisingly, the King demanded services other than the collection of taxes from his lords. The following is a list of all the manors of Middenshire, the names of those to whom they were granted, and the services required to be rendered. Incidentally, the words in brackets denote the names of the manors as spelt in Domesday:

Pendlebury (Pendelberge)Sir Gervase Vert, granted the manor of Pendlebury on condition that, when doing homage at Court, he should always be ready to wipe the Royal Nose with his sleeve.

Puckworth (Bugeurde)Sir Rollo de Prycke, required to present to the King two pigs and a silver vomiting basin at Michaelmas.

Lower Thuckworthy (Dugwrde) Sir Geoffrey de Veau, to play practical jokes on those barons whom the King had identified as toadies or lickspittles.

Thuckham (Tucham)Abelard de Ville, to represent the King at the annual pie eating contest in Aix en Provence every September.

Middenbury (Medburg)The Abbot of Middenbury, Roger de Rambert, to supply the Royal Household with personalised stationery from the abbey scriptorium, and one small duck every 7th of April.

Round Island (Iselrunda) Guy de Tougere. The island was small, muddy and uninhabited. No service was attached to this grant, but de Tougere, a man who, even in those days, was regarded as "ripe," having bad breath, body odour and "Fermage dez Pedz" (literally 'cheesy feet'), was required to swear an oath that he would always stand downwind of the King.

The Domesday record certainly seems to bear out the fact that Middenshire was poor; the total value of the Shire (i.e. the combined annual receipts of the six manors) was only four pounds seventeen shillings, broken down as follows:

Pendlebury: fifteen shillings; Puckworth: twelve shillings; Lower Thuckworthy: fourteen shillings; Thuckham: six shillings; Middenbury: fifty shillings; Round Island: nothing.

The lords of Middenshire ruled their provinces on the whole benevolently, but sometimes by force of arms or taxation as the fancy took them. Abelard de Ville, the gluttonous lord of Thuckham, combined his gourmandish hobby with taxation by creating a Food Rent. On collection day, he and his obese lieutenants would descend on the villagers in his thrall and eat everything they had.

The Lord who, at first glance, had seemed the unluckiest, de Tougere, was soon found to be by far the most fortunate. On Round Island was found a particularly rich silt which came to be known as Lucky Mud. It was good for crops, the complexion, absorbing odours, earth closets, and was a superior daub at a time when wattle and daub was a popular building method. Thus he was able to sell his Lucky Mud to other manors. It was rumoured that he even started an illegal mud trade with the mainland; illegal in the sense that he failed to pass of a proportion of the profits to the King.

William the First was succeeded by his younger son. This second Norman king, named (with a startling lack of originality by his father) William, was quickly given the nickname "Rufus," allegedly in recognition of his shock of red hair. However, it is far more likely to have been from the embarassment of an incident which occurred in Middenshire shortly after the start of his reign. As a goodwill gesture to his people, and in an attempt to persuade the Almighty to overlook his father's faults and speed him on his way to Heaven, he gave substantial gifts to church and people. Every large foundation was given ten gold marks and every smaller house, six. Parish churches were given sixty shillings each, and the enormous sum of £100 went to every shire for distribution to the poor. Not surprisingly, perhaps, Middenshire was totally forgotten in this share out. Abbot Roger travelled to Portland to petition a very minor clerk to the King's Exchequer about this oversight, but gained nothing. Rather, he was the poorer as a result of the encounter, since the clerk borrowed half a mark (six shillings and eightpence) from the cleric. Ultimately, the complaint filtered through to the King, who was spending Christmas 1087 in London, but by this time the Royal Coffers were all but empty. All the Middenites received was a formalised letter of apology from the King and the half mark owing to Abbot Roger. A short time later, William increased taxes, and further burdens were placed on the populus by another heavy round in 1096. Not surprisingly, the people of Middenshire had very little time for the King after this. William Thuck believed that the death of William Rufus, which occurred four years later, was no accident. The arrow fired by Walter Tyrrell on that ill fated hunting expedition of 2nd August 1100 was, according to Thuck, a "contract" killing, planned by Middenites and paid for in ducks, there being little in the way of currency available. Whatever the truth of the allegation, the late, but hardly lamented Rufus was succeeded by his younger brother, who became Henry the First.

Information about the Twelfth century onwards was far more accessible to William Thuck and he was able to write with greater authority. Therefore, all further historical information will be contained within the body of his great tour of the island shire.