DOMESDAY CORNWALL 

(version 1a)
INTRODUCTION

HISTORY
By the middle of the seventh century, the Saxons had passed through the great forest of Selwood lying at the junction of what became Somerset, Dorset and Wiltshire, for in 658 the West Saxon King Cenwalh (643-674) fought the Britons at Peonnan (represented by Penselwood, ST 7531) 'and put them to flight as far as the (River) Parrett' (Anglo-Saxon Chronicle).
	These 'Britons', also called the 'West Welsh' by the Saxons, were the successors of the huge tribe of the Dumnonii who in Roman times had occupied Cornwall, Devon and part of Somerset, sharing borders with the 'Belgae' whose tribal capital was at Winchester and the Durotriges, based near Dorchester in  Dorset. 
	This battle probably opened up for Saxon colonization at least the Somerset levels as far as the hills lying in the west and by 682  the monastery at Glastonbury had, if the charter contains genuine information, been granted land 'near Quantock wood' and at Creech St Michael, near Taunton: Sawyer, Anglo-Saxon Charters, no. 237. In the same year the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records that King Centwine (676-685) 'put the Britons to flight as far as the sea'. It is said that Centwine defeated his enemies in three great battles, and one of these at least was probably against the 'West Welsh'. He may have driven them to the north coast of Somerset or to either coast of Devon and it is likely that his victory or victories will have allowed the Saxons to begin to colonize that future county. The process might even have begun earlier if the battle that Cenwalh fought at Posentesbyrig in 661 was at Posbury Down near Crediton in Devon. Posbury Camp is at SX 809970.
	By 710 King Ini of Wessex (688-?726) and King Nunna of Sussex, were fighting King Geraint of Cornwall and, as if in anticipation, in 705 Geraint had granted 5 hides at Maker near the mouth of the Tamar on the Cornish bank to the church of Sherborne: {Introduction: Ecclesiastical Organization}. Ini must have secured a sufficient toe-hold in south-eastern Cornwall to be able to grant 20 hides of land between the River Lynher and the River Tamar to Glastonbury Abbey: 5,2,17 Halton note.
	Neither grant endured, probably because of a British insurgency or counter-attack: the Annales Cambriae for 722 record that the British defeated the Saxons at Hehil apud Cornuenses ('at Hehil among the people of Cornwall'). Ekwall identified this place with the Camel estuary, Stenton with Hayle in Cornwall, others have suggested Hele in Marhamchurch or Hele in Jacobstow: Finberg, Lucerna, p. 103. It might be the same place as Great Domesday 4,8, Elhil, probably 'Halwyn' in Perranzabuloe, but that is far into Cornwall. 
	Certainly Devon was sufficiently settled by 729 for King Aethelheard (726-?740) to grant 20 hides by the River Torridge to Glastonbury Abbey (Early Charters of Devon and Cornwall, p. 7 no. 1 = Sawyer, Anglo-Saxon Charters, 1676) and 20 hides at Cridie, that is at Crediton, to Bishop Forthhere of Sherborne for the foundation of a 'minster': Sawyer, Anglo-Saxon Charters, no. 255.
	In 743 and in 753 King Cuthred of Wessex fought against 'the Welsh'. In the first of these battles, he was assisted by King Ethelbald of Mercia and this was probably a thrust or raid across the rivers Severn and Wye, but the second may well have been in Devon or in Cornwall. Certainly King Cynewulf (757-786) was in action against the 'West Welsh' and, in a grant of land in Somerset to St Andrew's Church at Wells, he even expresses grief  pro aliqua vexatione inimicorum nostrorum Cornubiorum gentis, ('for some harrying of the Cornish people, our enemies'): Sawyer, Anglo-Saxon Charters, no. 262, dated 766 (for 774?).
	By the beginning of the ninth century the West Welsh were probably confined beyond the Tamar, apart from a few enclaves. It seems probable that it was under King Egbert (802-839) that the real penetration of Cornwall began. In 815, 'he ravaged Cornwall from East to West' (Anglo-Saxon Chronicle), perhaps in response to a Cornish raid into Devon. In 825, according to an interpolation in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, 'the men of Devon' led by King Egbert fought against the Britons at Galford (in Lewtrenchard, Devon) and in 838 Egbert defeated a combined force of 'Danes' and 'West Welsh' at Hingston Down, west of the lower Tamar in Cornwall. 
	The assimilation of Cornwall to Wessex was ecclesiastical, administrative and political. English settlement seems to have gathered pace with the result that sixty per cent of names between the Tamar and Lynher rivers are English or have been anglicized in some way, often by the addition of –tun, and the percentage approaches ninety in the area around Stratton. The kings of Wessex appear to have begun to acquire land in Cornwall, including land held by Cornish churches, and to grant it to 'loyal servants' or to English churches. Separate grants by King Egbert of land at Kilkhampton, Ros and Maker, 30 hides in all, to the church of Sherborne and of Pawton, Lawhitton and Caellwic to the same show a desire to strengthen the hold of that bishopric on Cornwall: {Introduction: Ecclesiastical Organization}. 
	The number of place-names in -tun may suggest an attempt to create a version of the Saxon manor or in some cases multiple estates with a central place and dependencies, though it is uncertain whether similar Celtic structures preceded them.
	King Alfred's will, written c. 881, suggests that he held large estates in Cornwall which he divided between Edward his elder son and Aethelweard his younger: Sawyer, Anglo-Saxon Charters, no. 1507; English Historical Documents, i. pp. 492-95. To Edward who later became king (899-924) he gave 'the land at Stratton in Triggshire' and to Aethelweard he gave 'Lifton (Devon) and all the lands which belong to it, namely all that I have among the [West] Welsh except Triggshire'. By 'Stratton in Triggshire', Alfred appears to mean Triggshire itself, apparently an ancient division of Cornwall with Stratton (an Anglicized Cornish place-name) at its head. This area probably corresponded to the 1086 hundred of Stratton and to the hundreds of Stratton, Lesnewth and Trigg of later times; thus Alfred was granting north-east Cornwall to Edward. Lifton, granted to Aethelweard, would have been well placed to administer lands in Cornwall lying south of Bodmin Moor and corresponding to the Cornish area called 'Wivelshire', the Domesday hundreds of Rillaton and Fawton: {Introduction: Hundreds}. Domesday records the surviving trace of this arrangement when it says that in 1066 Landinner and Trebeigh (in Rillaton Hundred) had depended on Lifton: 5,1,14 Landinner note; 5,1,20 Trebeigh note. The fact that Lifton is not itself in Cornwall and that Alfred is vague about his Cornish lands may suggest that they were not yet consolidated. It is probable that the western two-thirds of Cornwall had yet to experience English penetration and organization, and that, for example, the great royal manor of Winnianton had yet to be established.
	Edward the Elder's son Athelstan (924-939) probably completed the subjugation or settlement of Cornwall. He held councils at Exeter in 928 and at Lifton in 931.He is credited with driving from Exeter the Britons who had lived in the city on an equal footing with the Saxons. He also formally fixed the Tamar as the boundary of Cornwall: William of Malmesbury, Gesta Regum (Mynors, Thomson and Winterbottom, p. 148 § 134.6); Finberg, Lucerna, pp. 122-23. At about this time, the ill-attested line of Cornish kings probably ceased to rule: there is evidence for a King Ricatus, probably tenth-century: Finberg, Lucerna, p. 111. Athelstan appointed a Bishop of Cornwall and gave him a seat at St Germans in 936. Athelstan may have well reformed the system, if there was one, whereby the Cornish lived under their own laws, though subject to English rule. He is credited with gifts of land to the churches of Bodmin, Padstow and St Probus and a charter survives granting land to St Buryan's. This is not unconnected with attempting to align the Celtic monasteries or communities of priests with English ways: {Introduction: Ecclesiastical Organization}.
	Henceforth, Cornwall was similar to an English shire. Under Athelstan or soon afterwards the five or six small shires of Cornwall were probably converted into the hundreds found in Domesday Book: {Introduction: Hundreds}. 

THE COUNTY BOUNDARY
The boundary of the county was fixed as the left bank of the Tamar by King Athelstan, and in 1066 would have essentially have been the same. However, there have been some changes:
Maker 
A part of Maker had become a dependency of the Devonshire manor of Walkhampton at an unknown date before 1066 but by 1086 the relationship had ended (DEV 1,22). Maker is there said merely to have been removed from Walkhampton. It had not necessarily been returned to Cornwall and it is not certain that the one tax-paying virgate of Maker held in Domesday Cornwall (5,2,14) by Reginald (of Vautortes) from the Count of Mortain is the same land, since the plough estimates differ. Maker, originally granted as 5 hides in the early eighth century, may have been split into several parts. A part of Maker known as Vaultersholme tithing (named from the Vautortes family) included Mount Edgecumbe and was certainly in Devon before the end of the thirteenth century and remained there until 1844; see Hoskins and Finberg, Devonshire Studies, p. 26.

Werrington 
Further up the Tamar, the large estate known as Werrington straddled the Tamar. It included the parishes of North Petherwin and Werrington, west of the Tamar, and St Giles in the Heath east of it. Werrington appears to have been royal land since the time of King Egbert (802-839). In King Edward's time it was a holding of Countess Gytha, wife of Earl Godwin, and was granted by her to Abbot Sihtric of Tavistock between 1066 and 1068. Apparently, proof of this grant was lacking or the Conqueror did not wish to confirm it, for the Domesday Commissioners treated Werrington as belonging to the king, together with many of Gytha's other lands, although the abbot's counterclaim is entered in Exon folio 178b2 (see DEV 1,50 Werrington note).The date of the transfer of the whole estate at Werrington to Devon is uncertain. Finberg, Lucerna, p. 172, argued that it was shortly before Domesday on the grounds that Tavistock Abbey's lordship portion of Werrington must be part of the 1 hide and 1 virgate exemption given to the abbot in the Tax Return for the Cornish Hundred of Stratton. This may be so. However, the abbot held at least one other land in Stratton Hundred at Tregrenna (3,4) and the returns for both Stratton Hundred and the adjacent Rillaton Hundred seem impossible to reconstruct with certainty largely because of deficiencies in the figures that Great Domesday itself gives: {Introduction: Hundreds}. If Werrington is not needed to account for some of the tax emption in Stratton Hundred, its transfer to Devon could have taken place at any time between Tavistock's acquisition of it and 1086. It would have been convenient for Tavistock Abbey if the whole manor of Werrington were placed in Devon. However, Gytha's lands in Cornwall were in the hands of the Count of Mortain by 1086, and it is possible that the Conqueror would have preferred to have Werrington in Devon and watched over by Baldwin the sheriff. It appears that the Count of Mortain had already removed Boyton (5,5,4) from Werrington and kept it in or returned it to Cornwall. Werrington was restored to Tavistock Abbey in 1096 (Monasticon Anglicanum, ii. p. 497; Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum, i. p. 97 no. 378) and the abbot continued to hold it until the Dissolution: Feudal Aids, i. p. 327; Valor Ecclesiasticus, ii. p. 381. The Tamar was re-established as the boundary here in 1966, when Werrington and North Petherwin returned to Cornwall. On the history of Werington, see DEV 1,50 Werrington note.

Landinner and Trebeigh
In 1066 Landinner and Trebeigh, although in Cornwall, had been dependencies of Lifton in Devonshire. They were apparently the last survivors of a much larger arrangement mentioned in the will of King Alfred: {Introduction: History}.

Borough and Tackbeare
In the Middle Ages, the parishes of North Tamerton (Cornwall) and West Bridgerule (Devon) were divided by the county boundary. A boundary adjustment of 1844 tidied this up by transferring to Devon the Cornish manors of Borough and Tackbear (1015 acres in all), both of them Domesday places (5,11,6. 5,24,18) lying west of the Tamar. Part of North Tamerton (1043 acres east of the Tamar) was transferred to Cornwall in exchange. Part of Boyton (Northcott hamlet) was transferred to Devon at the same time.

The Isles of Scilly
The Isles of Scilly are not mentioned in Domesday Book and were not only extra-parochial but not regarded as part of the county until recent times.

HUNDREDS
There are no hundred heads included in the text of Great Domesday Book for any of the five south-western counties, nor in that of its predecessor, the Liber Exioniensis (henceforth Exon). In the case of Cornwall there is not even a passing mention of a hundred or of 'the men of the hundred'. Even so, in Somerset, Devon and Dorset for which Exon is complete or largely so, it is evident that the material is arranged in most fiefs in distinct hundredal groups. A glance at the vast fief of the Count of Mortain in Exon for Cornwall will show that the same is true in this county.
	The Cornish hundreds are named in the Tax Returns (also known as Geld Rolls) which are now bound up with the main part of Exon in the Liber Exoniensis (folios 72-73), though not necessarily to be considered as a part of the enquiry that produced Domesday Book. These Tax Returns are probably based on lists of tax liability (containing the names of places and individuals) that are now lost. They record the collection of geld at 6s to the hide, which was the figure given by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for the exceptionally heavy geld of 1084. Each hundredal return begins with the total hidage of that hundred and the amount of tax paid. It then generally names the holders of exempt land (normally the total of an individual fief-holder's lordship land in that hundred) and ends with a list of those by whom the tax has not been paid, sometimes adding other details. The value of the Tax Returns to a study of the hundreds is that a comparison of holders and hidages with entries in Great Domesday can allow individual estates to be allotted to particular hundreds.
	For Cornwall there are Tax Returns for seven named hundreds with the following hidage totals:
	'Connerton' (33 hides)
	'Tybesta' (61 ½ hides and 3 furlongs)
	Winnianton (36 ½ hides)
	Stratton (83 hides and 3 virgates)
	Fawton (43 ½ hides)
	Rillaton (69 hides and 6 furlongs)
	Pawton (44 hides)
There is a further unit of land of which it is merely recorded that 'Saint Petroc has 30 hides of land which have never paid geld'.
	It is difficult to make a satisfactory identification of all the places implied by each Tax Return. Great Domesday does not systematically enter the total size of each holding, its tax assessment and the extent of the lordship land, though many of the figures for the last of these can be found in the corresponding Exon entries and are recorded in the relevant notes in the present edition. Moreover, in Cornwall the exemptions are calculated in an exceptional way. Whereas in other south-western counties the figures for exempt land and lordship land are almost always the same, in Cornwall the figure for land held in lordship (the manorial demesne) is often much lower than the proportion of the land that is not liable for tax (the fiscal demesne): see 1,2 hides note. The figure for the fiscal demesne in Cornwall can only be arrived at if Great Domesday and Exon between them provide a full set of figures for each estate. It rarely does and in particular the villagers' land is usually not given an extent, but simply said to be aliam terram ('the rest of the land'). Further, in Cornwall, the Count of Mortain holds the majority of land and the men, who in the Tax Returns for other counties would be named and their individual exemptions given, are here grouped simply as the homines comitis ('the men of the count'). 
However, the Cornish Tax Returns are particularly valuable in allocating the land of churches between various hundreds. They show, for example, that St Petroc's had land in 'Tybesta' Hundred (4,21 hide note) and that St Piran's had a presence in Stratton Hundred (probably at “Tregrebri”: 5,8,10 St Piran's note). The Tax Return for 'Tybesta' Hundred also shows a half-hide exemption for Sanctus Che ('St Kea') and for a Sanctus Goranus ('St Goran'), two holdings that do not appear in Great Domesday: CON 4 St Michael's note.
	Also in the Liber Exoniensis are two plain lists of hundred names (63b). If their purpose is the same as similar lists for Devon and Somerset, then one of them at least is a check-list of those hundreds or fiscal units that supplied information for the compilation of Great Domesday. They are given in the following table with the names of the Tax Return hundreds and the corresponding modern form:

Hundred Lists 	Tax Returns	Modern Name	Presumed Status	
Conartona
Conartona

Fawitona
Fauuitona

Pautona
Pautona

Rieltona Sancti
  Petrochii
Rieltona

----------
----------

Stratona
Stratona

Tibesterna
Tibestei 

Winnetona
Winnentona	Conarditona

Fauuitona

Pautona

(Sanctus Petrochus)

Rilestona

Stratona

Tibestena

Winnentona	'Connerton'

Fawton

Pawton

Rialton (St Petroc's)

Rillaton

Stratton

'Tybesta'

Winnianton	Hundred

Hundred

Manorial Hundred

Presumed Liberty

Hundred

Hundred

Hundred

Hundred	
Hundred names are given in these texts in the genitive case ('Hundred of …'). They are here restored to the nominative. It is possible that Tibestei is genitive of Tibesteus/Tibesteum, but more likely that it is not a Latin ending at all.

It will be seen that these schedules conflict in one crucial respect: the hundred lists make no mention of Rillaton Hundred, but instead have a hundred of Rieltona, which in the first list has Sancti Petrochii interlined above it in small lower-case writing. Despite the similarity of the modern names Rialton (in St Columb Minor) and Rillaton (in Linkinhorne), the eleventh-century forms leave little room for doubt. The Rilestona of the Tax Returns is the Risleston of Great Domesday and the Risllestona of Exon, that is Rillaton, a lordship manor of the Count of Mortain (5,1,13); whereas the Rieltona of the hundred lists is Great Domesday Rieltone (Exon Rieltona), that is Rialton, a manor of St Petroc's (4,5).
	The forms given above for these two names are sufficiently different to make it unlikely that they were confused, and improbable that whoever wrote Sancti Petrochii above Rieltona in the first list of hundreds identified it by mistake. It is much more likely that the lists of hundreds name the units, not necessarily well-established hundreds, that provided information for the Domesday Survey, or that they were some form of check-lists used for the writing up of Exon. Certainly in the corresponding lists for Devon and Somerset, there are separate named 'fiscal units' that both before and after 1086, were members of normal hundreds.
	If this is so, it suggests that what became 'Pyder' Hundred (which may also have existed before the 1080s) was split into two units: the manor or manorial hundred of Pawton (co-extensive with the Bishop of Exeter's 44 hides of that name and occurring both in the lists of hundreds and in the Tax Returns), and Rialton 'Hundred', also known as St Petroc's, which is named in both hundred lists and is presumably the same as the 30-hide exemption of St Petroc mentioned at the end of the Tax Returns. This subdivision of 'Pyder' was probably short-lived. The division was not geographically discrete, for the bishop's manor of Pawton (2,4 Pawton note) severed St Petroc's estate of Padstow from most of its other possessions, including perhaps Bodmin, unless that was in Stratton Hundred in 1086; see Henderson, Essays, pp. 108-24; Olson, Early Monasteries in Cornwall, p. 93; and 4,3 Bodmin note. Pawton 'Hundred' was in single ownership but Rialton (St Petroc's) 'Hundred' contained the enclaves of two small Celtic churches: the canons of St Carantoc's held an area approximating to Crantock parish, while the canons of St Piran's had once held land that corresponded to the part of Illogan parish that lies east of the Portreath river, the whole of the parish of St Agnes and most of Perranzabuloe parish, except the north-eastern corner (4,7 'Tywarnhayle' note). Both churches had had difficulty in retaining their lands. The Count of Mortain had seized Crantock by 1086, while much of the land of St Piran's had already been given away (without acknowledgement of the fact) by King Edgar in 960 (4,7 'Tywarnhayle' note). It appears that the remaining hides of both these churches are needed to make up the 30 hides of exempt land held by St Petroc's according to the Tax Returns. It is possible that St Petroc's was in some sense controlling these churches, or at least made a return for them. St Petroc's was a powerful neighbour and once the seat of a Cornish bishop: {Introduction: Ecclesiastical Organization}. Some of the lands said by Great Domesday to be 'held' (perhaps in effect alienated) from St Petroc's by Berner (Nancekuke: 4,6) and by the Count of Mortain ('Tywarnhayle', Callestick and Cargoll: 4,7;9-10) lay in an area that might once have belonged to St Piran's. 
	A further intruder into St Petroc's hundred of Rialton is Lanherne, belonging to the Bishop of Exeter (2,7). Although adjacent to Pawton, also held by the bishop, it appears to have been separate from that manor and treated as an outlier of Rillaton Hundred or of Stratton Hundred.
	If Rieltona is a temporary 'hundred' of St Petroc's centred on Rialton, the absence of Rillaton from the hundred lists needs to be accounted for, especially as it has a Tax Return. The hundred lists seem to have been compiled by at least two Exon scribes in more than one stint and they may have been intended as a check-list to ensure that all the hundreds had been entered in Exon. It is possible that one scribe glancing at Rieltona (Rialton) thought that Rillaton Hundred had already been entered. It is also possible that it was simply omitted from the lists, as Silverton Hundred was in Devon. It is also possible that Rillaton was not included because its information was combined with that of another hundred, as information relating to the hundred of Keynsham was combined with that of Bedminster in Somerset. That the last possibility is likely is shown by the way in which the hundredal groups are entered in the Count of Mortain's fief. The scribes of Exon appear to have tried to begin each quire with a different hundred, and then to have filled in any blank pages with information from other hundreds as it came in or overflowed (CON 5 count note). Not only do places in Rillaton Hundred never begin a gathering, but when they do appear, they tend to alternate with blocks of places in Stratton Hundred. There are nine such alternations in Exon. Furthermore, the estate of Rillaton, unlike the other three manors held by the Count of Mortain that named the hundreds (Stratton, 'Tybesta', Fawton) is not the first of its hundred to be entered: 5,1,13 Rillaton note. There are a number of cases where an attempt to perceive distinct blocks of entries for these two hundreds, leads to questioning identifications or redrawing boundaries. In fact, it may be that in Exon there is no distinction between these two hundreds and that it is topographical rather than hundredal blocks that are perceived. It is possible that the material for these two hundreds was pre-assembled, perhaps at Stratton.

Hundredal Boundaries
The boundaries of the Cornish hundreds are mostly defined by clear geographical features. In 1086 a great trackway on the ridge running down the spine of Cornwall from Launceston to Penzance and St Michael's Mount, which is still a major highway for most of its length, divided the county in half. From this, other boundaries diverged, mostly following rivers. Thus this highway separates 'Connerton' and Rialton (St Petroc's) from Winnianton  and 'Tybesta' while the adjacent hundreds of Winnianton and 'Tybesta' were separated by the River Carnon, and 'Connerton' and Rialton (St Petroc's) by the River Portreath. The boundaries of all four hundreds once met near the former railway station at Scorrier, at a place earlier called Keverango, which is the plural of Cornish keverang ('a hundred', 'a cantref'): Henderson, Essays, p. 108. According to Dr Padel, the meaning has shifted from 'meeting' to 'encounter' to 'battle' to 'military assembly' to 'district operating as a unit for military service'. Even so, it is possible that the actual point where these hundreds met was a slightly different place: Pool, 'The Penheleg Manuscript', pp. 224-28.
	Fawton Hundred was marked off from 'Tybesta' Hundred by the River Fowey and from Rillaton by the River Seaton for much of its length. Rialton (St Petroc's) 'Hundred' and Pawton 'Hundred' were interwoven, but Pawton Hundred was separated from Stratton Hundred by the River Camel. Stratton and Rillaton Hundreds were essentially separated by the great road that crosses Bodmin moor. 
	There are a few complications to this essentially simple picture of 'primary' boundaries. The hundred boundary bisects the parish of Crowan leaving part in Winnianton Hundred, part in 'Connerton' Hundred. It also cleaves the parish of  St Enoder, most of which was in St Petroc's Hundred, but had the tithings of Arrallas and part of Burthy in 'Tybesta' Hundred: Pool, 'Tithings of Cornwall', p. 310. Cartuther lay in Fawton Hundred, west of the River Seaton, but was a tithing of Menheniot parish, itself in Rillaton Hundred: Pool, 'Tithings of Cornwall', p. 329. In the same area, Bonyalva lay east of the Fawton-Rillaton hundred boundary in Rillaton but appears to have been regarded as a part of Fawton Hundred, since it was an outlier of Pendrim.
	Lands that lay in the hundreds of Rillaton and Stratton in the fief of the Count of Mortain in Exon often appear in blocks, which may be hundredal or geographical, though those for Stratton Hundred do not relate to the later tripartite division of that hundred. Because it is not always possible to demarcate these blocks, and it is uncertain whether places grouped together are actually in the same hundred, rather than brought together by geography, it is difficult to perceive the exact line of division at some points between Stratton and Rillaton Hundreds. It seems probable that in 1086 as later the hundred boundary divided the parish of Altarnun placing Landinner, Tredaule and Trevague in Rillaton Hundred and Bowithick, Trewint and Penpont in Stratton Hundred. Halvana (if correctly identified) seems to have been in Rillaton Hundred: 5,24,5 Halvana? note. This division of the parish is reflected in its tithings: Pool, 'Tithings of Cornwall', pp. 297, 329. 

Lordship of the Hundred
All the Cornish hundreds, apart from Pawton and Rialton (St Petroc's), have a variety of landholders within them. Pawton was a large manor-hundred held by the Bishop of Exeter and Rialton (St Petroc's) was held by St Petroc's of Bodmin, though it contained the lands of the churches of Crantock and of St Piran's. It is not certain whether the other hundreds had paramount lords, though it is very likely. Winnianton Hundred was named from a royal manor (1,1) held by Harold (presumably as Earl of Wessex) in 1066. 'Connerton' had been held in 1066 by Brictric (son of Algar), a great thane, possibly by royal gift, then by the Conqueror's queen, Matilda, until her death in 1083, thereafter by King William himself. Fawton (5,1,1) had been held in 1066 by Merleswein (possibly the important thane and sheriff of Lincolnshire of that name: 5,1,1 Merleswein note) and was a lordship manor of the Count of Mortain in 1086. Brictmer had held Rillaton in 1066. If he had held other lands in the county T.R.E. (there are several occurrences of the name in Great Domesday but it is not at all clear how many individuals called Brictmer there were, though see 4,1 Brictmer note) it may be that he was an important thane or official. In 1086 Rillaton was among the Count of Mortain's lordship manors (5,1,13). Stratton had once been held by King Alfred and then by his son Edward the Elder (5,1,3 Stratton note) though in 1066 it was shared between Bishop Osbern and Alfred the marshal. If Alfred was a marshal or sheriff of Cornwall, it might have been a grant by the king that came with his office. In 1086 Stratton was another lordship manor of the Count of Mortain. 'Tybesta'(5,1,6) had been held by Ralph the constable in 1066 (also possibly ex officio) and in 1086 the Count of Mortain held it in lordship. The difficulty with the 1066 tenures is that neither Exon nor Great Domesday indicates from whom the tenants held, if they were not the tenants-in-chief, and for how long they had done so. It is quite possible that, with the exception of Pawton Hundred and Rialton (St Petroc's) Hundred, the Cornish hundreds had been held by or from King Edward, as perhaps from his predecessors. In 1086, two hundreds were held by the king, one each by the Bishop of Exeter and the Church of St Petroc, and four by the Count of Mortain.

Origin
The simplicity of most hundredal boundaries, following the spine of an upland or the course of a river, suggests that the hundreds were ancient divisions. In about 881 King Alfred, in his will, gave to his elder son 'Stratton in Triggshire' (straetneat on triconscire). It is significant that Stratton is given the name-form that it had before it acquired the Old English suffix –tun, but more important that 'Trigg' is said to be a 'shire', that is, apparently, a 'small shire' corresponding to a Welsh cantref and familiar from other fringes of England. A mysterious Vennesire appears in a supposed charter of King Edward to the Abbey of Mont-Saint-Michel, Normandy, and might have the same first element as Winnianton: 1,1 Winnianton note; 4,1 St Michael's Church note. After 1086 Triggshire resurfaces as a division of Cornwall and others appear called East and West Wivelshire (1185, 1171), Powdershire (1188), and Pydershire (1130). Further divisions (Kerrier, 1202 and Penwith, 1186) are rarely called 'shires'. Unless these shire-names that occur later were created after 1086 in imitation of Triggshire, it is probable that they are the names of the primitive subdivisions of Celtic Cornwall. If so, the English settlers of the ninth and tenth centuries will have first attempted to dominate them by the implantation of large, probably royal, manors on the Wessex model and then, when hundreds were introduced in the mid-tenth century, declared these 'shires' to be hundreds and consolidated their dependency on these manors. 
	Some adjustments will have been made in the formation of the hundreds from these older divisions or in the period between the mid-tenth century and the writing of Great Domesday. Wivelshire, if it was a primitive division, will have been split into Fawton Hundred and Rillaton Hundred which may explain why some estates seem to have links across the boundary. Pydershire will have been divided into the 'hundreds' of Pawton and Rialton (St Petroc's). Because the later hundreds of Kerrier and Penwith are not normally called shires, it is possible that they were only a re-naming of Winnianton Hundred and 'Connerton' Hundred, and that both the latter originated from a subdivision of 'Vennshire', which would, according to this hypothesis, have embraced the whole of the western end of Cornwall. 'Vennshire' would have been very large (though no larger than Triggshire) but it is also possible that an English king wished to reward two loyal men of importance in Cornwall by giving them each a hundred. The hypothetical relationship of the 'small shires' to the Domesday hundreds and the definite relation of these to the later hundreds are set out below:

Possible early 'Small Shires'	Supposed Correspondence of Domesday Hundreds	Later Successors of the Domesday Hundreds	
'Vennshire'

'Pydershire'

'Powdershire'

Triggshire

'Wivelshire'

	'Connerton'
Winnianton

Pawton
Rialton (St Petroc's)

'Tybesta'

Stratton

Fawton
Rillaton	Penwith
Kerrier

Pydershire
Pydershire

Powdershire

Trigg,
Stratton,
Lesnewth

West Wivelshire or West
East Wivelshire or East	

The names of the Domesday hundreds are treated in the notes relating to the corresponding estates. Of the other names, Penwith is the Cornish name for Land's End itself and survives in the parish name of St Just in Penwith: Padel, Cornish Place-Names, p. 136. Pydershire is almost certainly Petroc-shire, the name of the saint being pronounced 'Pedrek': Picken, 'Names of the Hundreds of Cornwall', p. 38. If this is so, the name and the 'small shire' probably pre-date the grant of Pawton to the Bishop of Sherborne (815 x 839), which represents a large slice of 'Pydershire' and may well have belonged to St Petroc's. Triggshire is presumably connected with the pagus Tricurius mentioned in the life of St Samson of Dol, a seventh-century saint, though the life itself is difficult to date precisely between the seventh and the ninth centuries. If the name is correct, pagus could denote a tribal area rather than simply the pays dependent on 'Trigg'. Lesnewth (SX 1390) means 'new court' and may have been named by reference to Helstone, the 'old court' (SX 0881), which itself might have been the centre of Triggshire. It would be characteristic of the English to displace this by a Wessex-style estate based on the manorialized Stratton. Lesnewth as an area name is called Middle Triggshire in 1211: Picken, 'Names of the Hundreds of Cornwall', pp. 36-40.
	There is considerable and possibly significant correspondence between the hundreds and the rural deaneries. Stratton Hundred corresponds to the deaneries of Trigg Major and Trigg Minor, which between them incorporated Lesnewth. Trigg Major contained Stratton and Werrington as well as other places. The remaining deaneries (East, West, Pydar, Powder, Kerrier and Penwith) corresponded more or less to the hundreds of those names.
(Further discussion of the Cornish hundreds can be found in: Anderson, English Hundred-Names: South-Eastern Counties, pp. 151-55; Rowe, 'Boundaries of Hundreds, Ancient and Modern'; Alexander, 'Hundreds of Cornwall'; Rowe 'Hundreds of Cornwall'; Thomas, 'Settlement History in Early Cornwall'; Picken, 'Names of the Hundreds of Cornwall'; Thorn, 'Hundreds and Wapentakes' in Cornwall Domesday, pp. 37-46) 

ADMINISTRATION OF THE SHIRE
In 1066 Cornwall will have been overseen by Harold Godwineson in his capacity as Earl of Wessex. No pre-Conquest sheriff, who might have served under him, is known.
	After the Conquest, William apparently entrusted the county to Count Brian the Breton, son of Odo and uncle of the Breton Count Alan who held a major fief in Domesday. Brian is a shadowy figure who disappears from English view in the 1070s. He may have been purged after the so-called Breton rebellion of 1075, centred on Ralph of Gaël, Earl of Norfolk, but there are reasons for thinking that he left England earlier; see the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for 1075; Early Yorkshire Charters, iv. pp. 15-16; Handbook of British Chronology, p. 422; and 4,1 St Michael's note.
	Brian was replaced, probably in the 1070s, by Robert, Count of Mortain, the king's half-brother, who in 1086 held the majority of the land in Cornwall either personally or through more than forty subtenants who were 'his men'. His position was analogous to that of Earl Hugh of Chester and Earl Roger of Shrewsbury and to that of the deceased William son of Osbern who all held quasi-palatinate earldoms to protect the Welsh border. It is possible that William the Conqueror also felt that Cornwall was vulnerable to attack or to unrest fomented from Brittany.
	"Turstin", one of the count's tenants, is styled the sheriff in Exon (5,4 "Turstin" note), but it is uncertain whether he was the count's sheriff or a royal officer, like Warin the sheriff who is attested in 1096. The Count of Mortain did not hold the whole of Cornwall, so there was perhaps the need for a full sheriff: Green, English Sheriffs, p. 33. On the other hand, the lands that King William obtained from Earl Harold seem to have been managed by Baldwin, the sheriff of Devon, and those lands that his queen had held by William of Claville and a Gotshelm, probably his brother: CON 1 king note.
	Robert's son, William of Mortain, succeeded to his father's estates but forfeited them in 1106 for rebellion. However, by 1100, Count Alan of Brittany, nephew of Count Brian, was Earl of Cornwall as well as holding the honour of Richmond in Yorkshire.
	Count Robert had a castle at Launceston, but was scarcely ever in Cornwall or in England (Soulsby, 'Introduction, Cornwall Domesday, p. 16). In his absence his fief, and therefore the majority of Cornwall, may have been managed by the most important of his followers: "Turstin" (5,4), called "Turstin" de Cornubia in a charter written between 1103 and 1106 (Round, Calendar of Documents, France, p. 437) together with  Hamelin (5,5) who had the same appellation and Reginald of Vautortes (5,2). Reginald possessed a castle at Trematon (5,2,11). For a Hamelin's connection with Launceston castle, see Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum, ii. p. 206 no. 1486.

ECCLESIASTICAL ORGANIZATION
In 1086 Cornwall lay within the diocese of the Bishop of Exeter who was a landholder there (CON 2). There were no Benedictine abbeys in the county, the nearest being at Tavistock in Devon, which also held lands in Cornwall (CON 3). With the possible exception of St Michael's (4,1 St Michael's note) no church or its land belonged to a foreign house. Chapter 4 lists a number of Celtic churches of which several had lost some or all of their lands, but nearly all appear to have been reformed on Saxon lines into colleges of secular canons or priests.
	Christianity developed separately and differently in Cornwall and in Devon and parts of Somerset by contact with other Celtic lands (South Wales, Ireland and Brittany), and this led to the establishment of a number of monastic cells, churches or monasteries. Some may well date from the sixth century and have pre-dated and been unaware of St Augustine's mission which landed in Kent and established an archbishopric there at Canterbury in 597. It is usually difficult to determine whether these early 'churches' were eremitic or coenobitic cells, large monasteries or communities of priests devoted to Christianizing the countryside and ministering to the already faithful. Some may have been simply a church and a priest. It is probable, however, that even if there were monks who had withdrawn from the world at these places, there were also priests who perambulated through the countryside converting the heathen and ministering to the faithful, the functions that early minster churches will have performed in Wessex. 
	Some establishments had disappeared before 1086, as the Tax Returns refer to St Kea and St Gorran as landholding churches (CON 4 St Michael's note). St Kew had been deprived of its land at Treroosel (5,24,14) and probably elsewhere: 1,4 Lanow note. Others may well have disappeared earlier and be represented only by Lan- or Eglos- in place-names. To the list of religious houses appearing in Great Domesday and in addition to Saints Kea, Kew and Gorran, it is likely that there were early communities at Paul and at St Samson in Golant. A religious house dedicated to St Antony, king and martyr, at St Antony-in-Roseland, one at St Carroc and one at Lammana (Looe Island) are evidenced after 1086 but they may well have been in existence earlier and even been passed over in silence in Domesday especially if they had been deprived of their land: Olson, Early Monasteries in Cornwall, pp. 23, 26, 90-91, 97. Of these, St Antony was a dependency of Plympton Priory after 1086, St Carroc of Montacute Priory and Lammana of Glastonbury Abbey.
	It is, however, very difficult to determine how early most of these foundations are and the earliest firm evidence for the existence of most is a tenth-century list: Olson and Padel, 'List of Cornish Parochial Saints'. This contains, among others, the names of Entenin (no. 10 p. 45),  probably St Antony-in-Roseland (see above); Achobran (no. 18 p. 47), that is St Keverne (4,23); Berion (no. 19 p. 48), St Buryan (4,27); Nioth or Rioth (no. 23 p. 49), St Neot? (4,28); Propus (no. 24 p. 51), St Probus (4,24); Pierguin (no. 27 p. 52), St Piran? (4,26); Geuedenoc (no. 28 p. 53), that is St Wethenock, the founder of Padstow; […]uai (no. 29 p. 54), possibly St Kew (1,4 Lanow note), and Guron (no. 43 p. 60), St Gorran (CON 4 St Michael's note).
	As the Saxons moved westwards they brought with them the Christianity of Augustine. The West Saxon see was first established at Dorchester-on-Thames (Oxfordshire) in 634, then at Winchester in 662. As this see expanded westwards it was divided with a forward post established at Sherborne in 705. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle under the year 709 records that 'in this year died Ealdhelm, who was bishop west of the wood (Selwood).'
	King Ini of Wessex (688-?726) was in a position to attack Cornwall. The acquisition of territory and the subjugation of an enemy who could harry him on the western border of Wessex were no doubt prime concerns, but an interesting letter of Ealdhelm (Bishop of Sherborne 705-709) written to King Geraint of Cornwall shows the determination to unify the practice of Christianity and to correct error: quid enim prosunt bonorum operum emolumenta, si extra catholicam gerantur ecclesiam …? ('What good are the rewards of good works if they are to be performed beyond the catholic church ...?'): Aldhelm, Opera, (Ehwald, p. 481). It is not clear if this was in the mind of Ini. However, his intentions towards Cornwall ({Introduction: History}) seems to have had as a result a grant by King Geraint of Cornwall of 5 hides at Maker to Sherborne in about 705: 5,2,14 Maker note. This did not prevent an attack by Ini on Cornwall which seems to have led to the temporary acquisition by Glastonbury Abbey of an estate between the RiverTamar and the River Lynher: 5,2,17 Halton note. 
	However, the penetration of the Cornish peninsula by the church of Wessex really began under King Egbert of Wessex (802-839). He granted to the church of Sherborne three major estates, Pawton, Caellwic and Lawhitton, as well as Kilkhampton, Ros and Maker: 1,5 Kilkhampton note and 2,4 Pawton note. Pawton seems to have been deliberately chosen to drive a wedge between Padstow and Bodmin, the centres of the worship of St Petroc. Lawhitton at this time included Dunhevet [Launceston] which was acquired by the Count of Mortain only by exchange and in the Conqueror's reign, and which stood across the 'gateway to Cornwall'. If Caellwic is Tregaire (2,3), then it was a daring implantation of the Saxon church far along the peninsula. The second grant included a re-grant of Maker (5,2,14), first obtained by the church c. 705. If Ros is Roseland, it would again be an attempt to dominate the small Celtic monasteries or communities of clerics in the west of the peninsula. 
	Cornwall seems to have had its own Celtic bishops. Some time between 833 and 870 Bishop Kenstec made a profession of canonical obedience to Ceolnoth, Archbishop of Canterbury. Such professions were common when a bishop was enthroned and 29 examples survive from the late eighth and early ninth centuries: Olson, Early Cornish Monasteries, p. 51. However, this act would have a special significance if it were the first such profession by a Cornish bishop, indicating that Cornwall was now a member of the archdiocese of Canterbury. Kenstec describes himself as having a seat in the 'monastery' at Dinuurrin, which might, on circumstantial grounds, be near or at Bodmin. The name may contain Uuron, the name of a hermit who lived on the moor above Bodmin and who was displaced by the arrival of St Petroc; see Olson, Early Cornish Monasteries, p. 53; and 4,3 St Petroc's note.
	After Kenstec, no bishop is named and it seems likely that, for a period, Cornwall was supervised by the Bishops of Sherborne, and after a partition of their diocese in 909 by the Bishop of Crediton. The care of Cornwall may well have been entrusted to a bishop's assistant, even perhaps to an assistant bishop or chorepiscopus. In about 890 King Alfred conferred on Asser, the future Bishop of Sherborne (892 x 901 – 910), 'Exeter with all the diocesan territory (parochia)  belonging to it in Saxonia (presumably Devon) and in Cornubia (Cornwall): Asser, Life of King Alfred (Stevenson,  pp. 68, 321); see Henderson, 'Ancient Bishopric of Cornwall', p. 25; Finberg, Lucerna, pp. 109-10.
	There survive the names of two men, Waerstan and Putta, who may have been assistants to the bishops and possibly based at North Tawton, Devon (Finberg, Lucerna, p. 110). However, these may have been only occasional appointments. Certainly after the foundation of that see, the Bishop of Crediton was expected to make an annual visit to Cornwall 'to expel the people's errors': Sawyer, Anglo-Saxon Charters, additional 1451a; Hooke, Charter Bounds of Devon and Cornwall, p. 20; O'Donovan, Charters of Sherborne, pp. liv-lv; and 2,6 St Germans' note.
	The three estates of Pawton, Caellwic and Lawhitton appear to have been the centres for the rectification of ecclesiastical error. They will have passed to the new Bishopric of Cornwall established by King Athelstan before 931. He enthroned a bishop with a Cornish name, Conan. In 936, King Athelstan gave him 'the manor of St German and all the land of the bishopric: 2,6 St German's note.
	King Athelstan is credited with grants to Bodmin, Padstow and Probus, and a grant to the church of St Buryan of one mansa in seven places survives; see Henderson, 'Cornish Church Guide', pp. 59, 174, 187; and 4,27 St Buryan note. Such grants may have been part of the West Saxon way of handling the Celtic church: there were issues concerning the interpretation of scripture and about obedience and power which could be resolved partly by 'adopting' these churches. 
	Another way was to reduce the churches' power by reducing their holding of lands: grants by King Edgar (in 967 and 969) and by King Edmund the Martyr in 977 show them giving away lands that had apparently belonged to St Achebran's (St Keverne): 1,1 Winnianton note. A further method was to reform the churches on English lines. It is unclear how the Celtic churches were organized, but by 1086 all but three (St Michael's, 4,1; St Neot's, 4,28; St Constantine's, 4,29) contained canons, and were therefore probably the secular colleges that were such a feature in much of England at the period. Of the exceptions, St Michael's probably already belonged to the Benedictine Abbey of Mont-Saint-Michel in Normandy and was or was becoming an alien cell and St Constantine's seems to have had no clergy at all.
	The great power base of Cornish Christianity remained St Petroc's Church at Bodmin which King Ethelred tackled in 994 by confirming a number of privileges on Ealdred, the English Bishop of St German's, and making St Petroc's subject to him and to his successors; see Sawyer, Anglo-Saxon Charters, no. 880; Early Charters of Devon and Cornwall, p. 19 no. 95; Hooke, Charter Bounds of Devon and Cornwall, p. 21; Olson, Early Monasteries in Cornwall, pp. 74-78. The founding of Tavistock Abbey c. 975 and the granting to it of land in Cornwall, will also have spread the Benedictine ideal or rule into Cornwall.
	St German's, though established as a bishop's seat, retained its cathedral for less than a century. However, it remained an important place in 1086 and retained the division between the bishop's part and the canons' part as if it were still a cathedral and the bishop were still resident. In fact, the Cornish see was reunited with that of Crediton in 1027 and the cathedral of that see was removed to Exeter in 1050. The foundation deed transfers 'the episcopal seat of St German and St Petroc to St Peter in the city of Exeter': Sawyer, Anglo-Saxon Charters, no. 1021; Early Charters of Devon and Cornwall, p. 19 no. 64; see Hooke, Charter Bounds of Devon and Cornwall, p. 53. The see of Sherborne itself was based at Old Sarum (Salisbury) by 1078.
	By 1086 other changes were happening or about to begin. The church of St Michael on the Mount had probably already been given to the Benedictine Abbey of Mont-Saint-Michel. Within a few years, St Stephen's would move to Dunhevet, taking the name Launceston with it and be re-founded as an Augustinian priory. St Petroc's itself would be re-founded for Augustinian canons. A new priory would be established at Tywardreath, and several existing churches would be attached to others east of the Tamar: St Kew, St Piran and St Probus to Exeter; St Carantoc and St Neot to the priory of Montacute.

RELATED OR 'SATELLITE' TEXTS
THE LIBER EXONIENSIS (EXON)
For the south-western counties there is another set of returns, known as the Liber Exoniensis, Exon or the Exeter or Exon Domesday (henceforward Exon), the bulk of which appears to be a preliminary draft of  circuit II (Wiltshire, Somerset, Dorset, Devon, Cornwall) of Great Domesday, though differently arranged and worded and containing much information not in its successor, such as details of villagers' land numerous bynames, livestock and often more precise dating of the values of manors and how they were held. It seems very likely, however, that these counties in Great Domesday were taken directly from the main part of the Liber Exoniensis; see DOR {Introduction: Exon Extra Information and Discrepancies}. Comparison with the version in Great Domesday shows that certain folios in Exon have clearly not survived, such as all those dealing with Wiltshire except for one entry, more than half of Dorset and four fiefs and a few entries for Devon. In Exon the overriding principle of arrangement is the individual fief, not the county; the county's lands appear as subdivisions within the fiefs and, generally speaking, Devon, Cornwall and Somerset appear in this order within the fief. The returns for Dorset, with the one Wiltshire entry, form a separate group, placed near the beginning of Exon as it is now paginated and bound. Within each county places are often grouped in hundreds, although without the hundred name given. This provides important evidence for the identification of places and in part offsets the lack of hundred headings in the text of Domesday here; see {Introduction: The Identification of Places}. Information is sometimes duplicated in Exon, as for example in Cornwall where the same 11 hides are listed under the king's manor of Winnianton (folios 99-100) and among the Count of Mortain's holdings (folios 224-227) as he had seized them.
	Apart from the Exon Domesday proper, the Liber Exoniensis contains the Tax Returns or geld accounts (entitled Inquisitio Gheldi on folio 532a) for all five counties, compiled c. 1084-1086; see DOR {Introduction: The Tax Returns}. Also included are details for Devon, Cornwall and Somerset of 'Appropriated Lands' (Terrae Occupatae) on folios 495-525. These contain condensed entries of certain manors, which had had land taken from them, or added to them, or which had not paid their customary dues, or which had been held as two or more manors before 1066 by one or more holders, or which were unusual in some other way; see SOM {Introduction: The Liber Exoniensis}, DEV {Introduction: The Liber Exoniensis}. The information given in the Terrae Occupatae almost always repeats what is in the main Exeter Domesday, but occasionally new information is given. A few lists of hundreds and some summaries complete the Liber Exoniensis. A convenient contents table of the whole is printed in Galbraith, Domesday Book in Administrative History, pp. 184-188. 
	The Exon folios dealing with Cornwall are: 63b (Lists of Hundreds); 72a-73a (Tax Returns); 99a-102b (CON 1); 111b-112a (CON 1); 180b-181b (CON 3); 199a-208b (CON 2 and CON 4); 224a-265a (CON 5); 334b (CON 6); 397b (CON 7); 507a-508b (the Terrae Occupatae); 528b (summary of the land of St Petroc's; see 4,3 summaries note).
	The Exon manuscript is preserved in the library of Exeter Cathedral and was printed in 1816 by Sir Henry Ellis in the third volume (fourth in certain bindings) of the Record Commission's edition of Domesday, from a transcript made by Ralph Barnes (1781-1869; this corrects the dates in the Phillimore printed editions of Dorset and Devon, which were those of his father, also called Ralph), Chapter Clerk. No Ordnance Survey facsimile, such as the one made by them for Domesday, exists for Exon. The manuscript consists of 532 folios of parchment, the majority of them measuring about 6 ½ inches by 9 ¾ inches (16 ½ centimetres by 25 centimetres); folios 1-3 and 526-528 are smaller. Each folio contains a single column on each side, most with about 20 lines. These folios fall into a series of quires, or gatherings, varying in number between one and ten folios. Generally a new quire was started for each major landholder, and a new side for most tenants. This led to many blanks, the number of which was increased by spaces sometimes left for information not to hand. There is no indication of the original sequence of quires, and the present order and system of reference date from the last rebinding in 1816; alas, these are not perfect: folios 519-525 were bound after folio 494 and folio 400 should have been numbered 402 and folios 401-402 should be 400-401. The manuscript is the work of about a dozen scribes and the hand changes often between entries and even within then (for example, three times on folio 98a3 = DEV 1,50); see Finn 'The Exeter Domesday and its Construction'. See also Flight, The Survey of the Whole of England, Chapter 5, who reckons there were sixteen scribes; this agrees basically with the unpublished analysis of the Exon scribes by Dr Teresa Webber (kindly lent to the editors) and with the ongoing work of CT on the Exon manuscript.
	The text cannot be economically reproduced in this edition; nine-tenths of it is repeated in the Domesday survey, with discrepancies of a fraction of one per cent in many tens of thousands of figures. Ellis' edition has here been used in the main, though the manuscript has been checked where Exon and Domesday differ and in a number of other places. The principal corresponding reference to Exon, where it survives, is given at the head of the notes to each entry, after the Domesday reference, with other references in the notes; the last number refers to the order of the entry on each side, as indicated in the manuscript generally by 'gallows' marks. All additional information and all discrepancies for Cornwall are given either in the translation (when the former can easily be inserted without disturbing the meaning of Domesday) or in the notes. A specimen entry, given below, with the Domesday equivalent, shows the differences in formulae. The substance, though not the wording, of the whole of the Exeter Domesday returns is therefore here reproduced.

For further details, see Galbraith Making of Domesday Book, pp. 184-88; Finn, Liber Exoniensis; Ker, Medieval Manuscripts in British Libraries, ii. pp. 800-807; Ellis, Domesday Book, iii. (Libri Censualis), Introduction, pp. ix-xiv.

EXTRACTS TO SHOW COMPARISON BETWEEN EXON AND GREAT DOMESDAY ENTRIES

CON 1,6 (folio 120b)
REX ten[et] GLVSTONE. Ibi s[un]t .iiii. hidę. sed geld[abat] p[ro] .ii. hid[is]. T[er]ra e[st] .xxx. car[ucis]. De ea. e[st] in d[omi]nio .i. hida. 7 ibi .ii. car[ucae]. 7 xii. serui. 7 xl. uill[an]i 7 xx. bord[arii] cu[m] .xvii. car[ucis]. Ibi .i. ac[ra] p[ra]ti. Pastura iii. leu[gas] l[on]g[a]. 7 una† leu[gam] 7 dim[idiam] lat[a]. Silua .i. leu[gam] l[on]g[a]. 7 dim[idiam] leu[gam] lat[a]. Redd[it] .vi. lib[ras] ad pondus.
De hoc M[anerio]  ablata. e[st] una hida in PENDAVID. T[er]ra. e[st] .vi. car[ucis]. Boie p[res]b[ite[r] ten[et] de comite moriton[ensi]. Oli[m] .xx. sol[idos]. m[od]o ual[et] .x. sol[idos].
† Probably a scribal error for unā (unam, accusative of extent)

The King holds BLISLAND. 4 hides, but it paid tax for 2 hides.
Land for 30 ploughs, of which 1 hide is in lordship; 2 ploughs there; 12 slaves;
40 villagers and 20 smallholders with 17 ploughs.
Meadow, 1 acre; pasture 3 leagues long and 1 1/2 leagues wide;
woodland 1 league long and ½ league wide.
It pays £6 by weight.
From this manor 1 hide in PENDAVEY has been taken away. Land for 6
ploughs. "Boia" the priest holds it from the Count of Mortain.
Formerly 20s; value now 10s.

Exon 101b1-2

Rex h[abe]t .i. mansione[m] quę uocat[ur] Glustona. q[uam] tenuit herald[us] comes.
ea die q[ua] rex E[duuardus]. f[uit] u[iuus]. 7. m[ortuus]. In ea s[un]t .iiii. hidę. 7 reddider[un]t Gildu[m] p[ro] ii. hid[is]. has iiii. poss[un]t arare xxx. carr[ucae].  De his h[abe]t Rex .i. hida[m] 7 ii. carr[ucas] in d[omi]nio. 7 uillani h[abe]nt iii. hid[as]. 7 x. 7 vii. carr[ucas]. Ibi h[abe]t R. xl. uillanos. 7 xx. bord[arios]. 7 xii. seruos. 7 iii. uaccas. 7 .lxx. oues. 7 .i. leuga[m] nemoris in long[itudine]. 7 dim[idiam] i[n] lat[itudine]. 7 .i. agru[m] p[ra]ti. 7 .iii. leugas pascuę  i[n] long[itudine]. 7 .i. leuga[m] 7 dim[idiam] i[n] latitud[ine]. 7 reddit p[er] annu[m] vi. lib[ras] ad pondus.
	de hac mansione ablata est .i. mansio q[uae] uocat[ur] pendauid. q[uae] p[er]tinebat ad p[re]scripta[m] mansione[m] ea die q[ua] rex. E[duuardus]. f[uit]. u[iuus]. 7. m[ortuus]. In ea est .i. hid[a] t[er]rę q[uam] poss[un]t arare vi. carr[ucae]. M[od]o  ten& ea[m] boia sacerdos de bomine de comite. 7 ual& x. sol[idos]. 7 q[uan]do comes accep[it] ualebat .xx. sol[idos].

The King has a manor which is called BLISLAND, which Earl Harold held in 1066.‡ 4 hides there; they paid tax for 2 hides. 30 ploughs can plough these 4. Of them the King has 1 hide and 2 ploughs in lordship, and the villagers have 3 hides and 17 ploughs. The King has 40 villagers, 20 smallholders, 12 slaves, 3 cows, 70 sheep, 1 league of woodland in length and ½  in width, 1 acre of meadow, 3 leagues of pasture in length and 1 ½  leagues in width. It pays £6 a year by weight.
	From this manor has been taken away a manor which is called PENDAVEY, which belonged to the above manor in 1066.‡ In it 1 hide of land, which 6 ploughs can plough. Boia the priest of Bodmin holds it now from the Count. Value 10s; value when the Count received it,± 20s.

‡  ea die qua rex Edward fuit uiuus 7 mortuus ('on the day on which King Edward was alive and dead'); it is always translated in this edition as 'in 1066' and is equivalent to T.R.E. (rendered here as 'before 1066') in Great Domesday

±  quando comes accepit is equivalent to olim ('formerly') in Great Domesday

THE DOMESDAY FORMAT
Circuit, Writing and Correction
Cornwall forms part of Circuit II which comprises the five south-western counties of Dorset, Wiltshire, Somerset, Devon and Cornwall. It is the only circuit for which the circuit volume, Exon, has survived. It is likely that Circuit II was the last to be written up into Great Domesday and it would seem from various internal features that Cornwall, which shares a quire with the third of the quires containing Devon, was the last county to be written within this circuit. On the reasons for these assertions, see Thorn and Thorn, 'The Writing of Great Domesday Book', and Thorn, Thorn and Gullick, The Scribal History of Great Domesday Book (forthcoming).
	Cornwall, like Devon and Somerset, was frame-ruled: that is, only two horizontal lines were 'ruled' with a hard point at the top and bottom and four vertical lines to mark out the writing space in the two columns. This ruling pattern is in contrast to that used in the other two counties in Circuit II, Wiltshire and Dorset, which were ruled with between 51 and 54 horizontal lines, though the main scribe of Great Domesday ignored them and wrote many more lines. 
	It would seem that after the first two counties to be written up into Great Domesday (Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, excluding the quire containing the Clamores and the Yorkshire Summary) had filled nine quires between them, a decision was made to limit as many counties as possible to one quire, even if this meant including one or more half-sheets or leaves in the quire. To avoid starting a second quire for Cornwall, the main scribe of Great Domesday incorporated two half-sheets, folios 123 and 124, before the last folio of the four-sheet quire. These were frame-ruled like the rest of the quire. If he had been able to judge precisely how much space he needed for Cornwall, he could have saved one half-sheet by beginning the account on folio 119, leaving just 1 ¼ columns blank after the end of Devon, rather than these and all of folio 119. As the text finishes half-way down folio 125b and all of folio 125cd is blank, the second half-sheet could also have been avoided, though to achieve this would have meant the scribe squeezing even more lines into a column than the current sixty or so. 
	The scribe's inability to judge accurately the length of the finished text of Cornwall is attributable principally to the layout of the material for Cornwall in Exon. Virtually the whole of the county was in the hands of the Count of Mortain and the Exon scribes recorded all his holdings there in one large section occupying four and a half quires and 42 folios (one is blank). In itself this would not have caused too much of a problem, but the arrangement there was essentially by hundred, whereas a decision was made to rearrange this material by subtenant when editing it for Great Domesday. The holdings of each of the count's tenants were picked out of the individual hundred blocks and detailed together in a series of subsections within the count's large fief. If one of the reasons for the Domesday Survey was to allow King William to know more clearly who held land as a subtenant as well as in chief, then this rearrangement made sense. A breakdown of the quires and hundreds in Exon with the corresponding entries in Great Domesday is given in CON 5 count note. The need to look repeatedly through the Exon quires to assemble these subtenancies meant, however, that without calculating how many lines of writing each entry would occupy when abbreviated and then adding these lines together and dividing them between the five folios left in the quire containing the end of Domesday Devon, the main scribe of Great Domesday would have found it impossible to be sure how much space was needed. The apparent need for speed in the writing up of Great Domesday meant that there would have been no time for such complicated calculations. Cornwall is no different in this respect than several other Domesday counties, though the existence of Exon means the problems faced by the main scribe of Great Domesday can be easily understood.   
	The need for care in the reorganization of the lands of the Count of Mortain was probably the main reason why Domesday Cornwall is the neatest of the counties in Circuit II with far fewer corrections and additions than the others. Disregarding corrections done by the main scribe of Great Domesday as he wrote the county and his three additions of entries initially omitted (5,4,19-20. 5,6,7), less than twenty corrections were later made by him. However, he did omit one entry, that for St Tudy (see 4,3 St Petroc's note). His remedial work and that of scribe B and the two minor scribes, scribe D and scribe E, is mentioned in the Notes under the relevant entries. There is a possibility that the main scribe was helped in his task of rearranging the count's fief.
	The reason for a great many of the initial errors and omissions can be attributed to the layout of the entries in Exon and the writing skills of the individual scribes there and to the rearrangement needed, not just on a broad scale in the count's fief but within each entry: the reversing of the order of the hidage and tax assessment, and of the 1086 and 'former' values certainly caused several errors.  
	The source of most of this remedial work was almost certainly Exon. It would seem that the main scribe of Great Domesday checked this at least twice, the second check producing corrections and additions after the county had been rubricated. As none of these in Cornwall was of material that would normally have been rubricated, it is not possible to tell at what stage the checks that produced them were made. Scribe B, however, almost certainly only worked after rubrication had taken place. Seven of his nine contributions were on the hidage of a holding that had been omitted entirely six times, the remaining two on the value and the resources. There is some doubt as to the source of his addition of the value of Rosebenault; see 5,6,4 value note. The two insertions by the two minor scribes, one on hidage and its tax exemption, the other on the tax exemption of hidage already included, cannot, however, have come from Exon; see 4,12 hide note and 4,25 tax note. There is no evidence that any of the remedial work done in Cornwall came from a check of the Terrae Occupatae or of the Tax Returns included in the Liber Exoniensis.  

Layout and Content of Entries
In the layout of the material in Domesday Cornwall there are not many differences between entries, the great majority being laid out thus:
A (the 1086 tenant-in-chief) holds B (the place-name) OR C holds B from A. D held it T.R.E.. It paid tax for e hides/virgates/furlongs/acres; f  hides/virgates/furlongs/acres there, however. Land for g ploughs; h ploughs there, with j slaves.  k villagers and l smallholders. Meadow/ woodland/ pasture (usually measured in acres). [Value] formerly £ s d; value now £ s d.
	Mills are included in five entries, heading the list of resources except once when a market precedes the mill; there are three other references to a market. Salt-houses are mentioned for Stratton (5,1,3) and similarly head the resources. For boroughs and burgesses, see {Introduction: Boroughs} and {Introduction: Castles}.
	The material available to the Exon scribes must surely have been defective in a number of cases, such as where not enough population is recorded to work the ploughs mentioned. Twice (4,2;23) 'villagers' are mentioned as having ploughs in the corresponding entries in Exon, but no inhabitants of that 'village' are included. However, the inclusion only of smallholders, without villagers, in some ninety entries was probably not a mistake. Instances where the Exon scribes did not or could not include the land held by the 'villagers' is mentioned in the relevant Notes.
	There are no references to the work of the hundred or shire courts and there are virtually none of the interesting 'extras' that in other Domesday counties were mentioned after the value of an entry had been recorded. Because the Count of Mortain had already removed many lands from existing tenants and there was no one else powerful enough in Cornwall to appropriate other holdings, there are few alienations mentioned as such within an entry. There are no indications of the status of each holding, as appear in Circuits II and III as marginal M[anerium], B[erewica] and S[oca].  

SPECIAL FEATURES
Boroughs
There is no place called a burgus ('borough', 'town') in Domesday Cornwall. Of the indications usually accepted as suggesting that a place was a borough very few are present and usually in isolation.
	Thus at Bodmin (4,3) there were 68 houses and a market. In the summaries included in the Liber Exoniensis (folio 528b), 68 burgesses are mentioned (4,3 summaries note): houses and burgesses can stand for each other in Domesday. In another eleventh-century source, not precisely datable, a portreeve ('reeve of a market-town') is mentioned: 4,3 houses note.
	At Dunhevet (5,1,22), later Launceston, there was a market and a castle and, both before and after 1086, evidence of a mint: 5,1,22 castle note. Cola and Iovin were apparently burgesses there: 5,3,5 Cola note; 5,7 Iovin note.
	The 40 cervisarii at Helston (1,2) are a large group in addition to 30 villagers and 20 smallholders. They might be burgesses who paid ale-rents: 1,2 ale-men note.
	There was a market at Liskeard (5,1,2) and also a large non-lordship population, though it would be hazardous to suggest that any of these was a burgess until other evidence is found.
	At St Germans (2,6) there had been a market, perhaps only temporarily disrupted by the Count of Mortain's market, probably in his castle at Trematon (5,2,11). The bishops of Exeter established a borough, 'Cuddenbeak', here after 1086.
	This 'evidence' is extremely slight. It is probably true to say that the growth of boroughs in Cornwall was slow, small-scale and late. However, it is also true that the format imposed on the Enquiry and on Domesday itself ensures that boroughs are not given any standardized or systematic treatment and that there could well have been more 'urbanization' than Domesday allows; see Henderson, Essays, p. 23; Soulsby, 'Introduction', Cornwall Domesday, p. 8; Witherick, 'Medieval Boroughs of Cornwall'.

Castles 
Domesday Cornwall mentions castles at Dunhevet and Trematon. The Count of Mortain had built his castle at Dunhevet, later known as Launceston, on land obtained by exchange with the Bishop of Exeter (5,1,22). The castle at Trematon was also a castle of the count, although it was held in 1086 by Reginald (of Vautortes), one of his important followers (5,2,11). On Launceston Castle, see King, Castellarium Anglicanum, i. p. 74. A castle was established at Restormel (SX104614) near Lostwithiel c. 1100; see King, Castellarium Anglicanum, i. p. 75.

EDITORIAL
The Identification of Places 
Satisfactory identification of a place given in Domesday Book depends principally on connecting the name-form there given with an individual modern place and on tracing the later history of the holding until it is clear what and where its modern representative is. The first of these requires a considerable collection of place-name material, the second a detailed study of manorial history. While an editor of Domesday Book can do a good deal of research to this end, he or she is reliant on the availability of material and the researches and publications of experts in these fields.
	The identification of Cornish places presents a number of difficulties. Like the other south-west counties, the text of Domesday contains no hundred headings, although this lack can in part be made good from Exon, which, without giving hundred headings, seems to group places by hundred under each major landowner, with a few exceptions. Some help can also be obtained from an analysis of the Tax Returns (Liber Exoniensis, folios 72-73 for Cornwall) which lists the holdings of major landowners under hundred heads but without giving place-names.
	However, the Cornish hundreds are large, unlike those of Wiltshire or Somerset, and locating a place within a hundred does not ensure its identification, since each hundred contains a number of places of the same or similar names. Cornwall is also remarkable for the number of names beginning Tre-, about thirty per cent of the total, for the quantity of names that survive only as isolated farms rather than as parishes, and for the many 'lost' places which are found on tithe maps or earlier editions of the Ordnance Survey, but are on no modern map: these include the hundred meeting-places of 'Connerton' and 'Tybesta'.
	Some name-forms may have become distorted before or during the writing up of the folios of Exon, because many of those involved were Norman, with their own particular ways of representing certain sounds, or Saxons. To both of these groups, the Cornish names may have proved difficult.
	Further, it appears that some attempts were made to regularize the Exon forms when they were transferred to Great Domesday, a process which produced some helpful changes, but also some even stranger forms.
	Finally, in Cornwall the records that document the later evolution of these names are scantier than in many counties. Those that do appear are often difficult to connect with a particular 1086 estate. The lack of any topographical volumes of the Victoria County History is keenly felt, as is the current absence of a volume in the English Place-Name Society series, although until one does appear, Oliver Padel's Cornish Place-Name Elements and his Cornish Place-Names are indispensable.
	The result of all these factors is that exceptionally large numbers of identifications have been questioned or are disputed and have been subject to several changes. Any editor of Domesday Book for Cornwall can be certain that a number of those here adopted will be nuanced or overturned.
	The first serious attempt at identification of the places in Domesday Cornwall was made between 1865 and 1867 by J. Carne, 'An Attempt to Identify the Domesday Manors'. Many of these identifications seem to have been no more than guesses based on the similarity of names. The identifications of Canon Thomas Taylor published in VCH Cornwall, ii. part 8 (1924), were a major advance. Subsequently, in 1948, J.E.B. Gover produced a draft of The Place-Names of Cornwall, intended to become an English Place-Name Society volume: his typescript is deposited at the Royal Institution in Truro and has been much cited. A considerable number of changes were proposed in the Domesday Gazetteer (1975) and many of these were accepted by Oliver Padel who provided the identifications for the Phillimore volume (1979). Maxwell, Domesday Settlements of Cornwall (1986), provided an invaluable concordance to previous attempts at identification, and proposed a number of changes which were available for the Alecto volume for Cornwall (1988): Williams and Erskine, The Cornwall Domesday The place-name lists for that edition were drawn up by F. R. Thorn who had the immense benefit of advice and a number of new suggestions from Dr Padel, who was (and is) the living expert on Cornish place-names. The identifications proposed for the Alecto edition have largely been adopted here, with any differences discussed in the notes to individual estates. 

State of Revision
The Phillimore edition of Cornwall appeared in 1979 and was the first of the five south-western counties to be published in the series. Oliver Padel, then of the Institute of Cornish Studies, provided a draft translation and the maps were the work of Jim Hardy and Frank Thorn. The volume was edited by Caroline and Frank Thorn under the supervision of John Morris, the General Editor, until his death in 1977. He defined the manner in which the Liber Exoniensis material was to be handled and incorporated, as well as the scope of the notes: he enjoined editors to provide minimal annotation. Cornwall appeared after his untimely death.

As the series progressed the annotation of some counties became so much fuller that some of the earlier volumes now need a comprehensive re-editing. Although the present edition is part of a project to convert the annotation of the Phillimore printed volumes to electronic form and to revise them, it has not been possible to do a full re-edit for Cornwall partly for reasons given under {Introduction: The Identification of Places}. There is, for example, little on the later history of each Domesday estate. However, the Notes have been greatly expanded and the following changes or additions made:
•	The three separate sets of notes (General Notes, Exon Notes, Places Notes) have been combined into a single sequence.
•	The Notes on Place-name Identifications and on the Hundreds which prefaced the Places Notes have been revised and placed in {Introduction: The Identification of Places} and {Introduction: Hundreds} respectively. The entries in the table of comparative identifications have now been incorporated in the individual notes.
•	The contents of the two Tables (on Detail for 1,1 given in Exon, and Lordship Detail) have now been incorporated in the notes of individual entries.
•	The opportunity has been taken to review the translation, especially of some recurring terms, bringing it into line with counties published later in the Phillimore series, and to comment on any important changes.
•	The place-name identifications have been re-scrutinized, and considerably more detail provided about the hundreds following F. R. Thorn's work for the Alecto edition (1988): Thorn, 'Hundreds and Wapentakes', Cornwall Domesday.
•	References have been made to all known Anglo-Saxon charters.
•	Cross-references in the text have been identified and commented on.
•	The contributions in Cornwall of scribe B and of the minor scribes D and E have been incorporated in the Notes, as well as the corrections and additions made by the main scribe of Great Domesday, where relevant. Above all, the parts of the Liber Exoniensis relating to Cornwall have been re-read and more material either incorporated in the translation (since the current format allows it) or included in the Notes. The work of C.M.J. Thorn on the Liber Exoniensis and especially on the identification of the scribes has been incorporated into the notes where appropriate. 
•	A number of the forms of personal names have been changed as part of an ongoing process to bring more consistency to the entire name stock of Domesday Book.
•	Some of the people have been further identified. When the identification comes from the person's occurrence in other documents or in other Domesday counties, this is shown in the translation between asterisks within square brackets. Where there is no documentary evidence for the identity of an individual, but it seems likely that a number of persons with the same first name are one and the same, this has been indicated in the translation by putting the name of one of the estates held by that person between < >. In this county the notes to justify both these forms of identification have largely been written by John Palmer and these have attributed to him as (JP), put at the end of his paragraph. 
•	The bibliographical and other conventions have been changed to align them with the other counties that have been revised for the current project.
•	Certain changes have been necessary in the conversion of the notes to a searchable electronic version, such as to the lead words for the notes, to cross-references and to punctuation. 
•	Obvious typographical errors in the Phillimore printed notes have been corrected.

Acknowledgements
John Morris inducted us into Domesday editing; Noel Osborne of Phillimore accepted without complaint the first difficult Domesday county. But the greatest thanks are due to Oliver Padel for the material he provided for the 1979 (Phillimore) and 1987 (Alecto) editons, and for the generosity and modesty with which he placed his unrivalled knowledge at our disposal. We would also like to thank Tessa Webber, and, more recently Colin Flight, for sharing with us their unpublished work on the scribes of the Liber Exoniensis, and to Michael Gullick who first identified the work of scribe B in Great Domesday. Jim Foy's acuity and knowledge are always available to us. Access to the Exon manuscript in Exeter Cathedral Library has been facilitated by the kindness first of Mrs A. M. Erskine and latterly of Peter Thomas. Access to the manuscript of Great Domesday on an unprecedented scale over a period of more than thirty years has always been freely granted by the staff of the Public Record Office; thanks are particularly due to Elizabeth Hallam Smith, Helen Forde, Mario Aleppo and John Abbott. 

C. M. J.Thorn
F. R.Thorn
December 2004
May 2007