SHROPSHIRE
(version 1a)

INTRODUCTION

GEOGRAPHY
Like other Midland shires, Shropshire did not have a territory that was mainly encompassed by those natural boundaries that rivers, hill-ridges and tracts of forest provide, nor was its shape due principally to tribal settlement. Its western border was dictated by the limit of the Saxon penetration of Wales, and along part of its eastern border the River Severn provided a convenient line of division between Shropshire and Staffordshire and Shropshire and Worcestershire, but in essence Shropshire was an artificial unit of land and contribution therefrom that was created around a fortified burh.
	Geographically, the lowland region in the north differs from the hilly region in the south, and they are mainly separated by the River Severn, but there is greater diversity in each than this two-fold division would imply. In the north, there is a large central plain, but with prominent upland in the north-west corner (near Oswestry) and in the south-west (the Wrekin). On the eastern side of this plain there is an area of heathland and the partly waterlogged, peaty mass of the Weald Moors.
	The southern half is scarp and vale country. The Clee-Wenlock uplands rise to 1700 feet. The Clee hills themselves are composed of tough volcanic rock. The area was comparatively underdeveloped in 1086 and settlement mostly confined to the valleys drained by the Mor Brook, the Rea Brook and the Cleobury Brook. West of here there were separate ridges or massifs formed by Wenlock Edge, the hill that separates Cardington and Hope Bowdler from Church Stretton, the Stiperstones, the Long Mynd and Clun Forest. Here there were also separate lumps of hill: Oakley Mynd, Hopesay Hill, Clunton Hill, Clunbury Hill, Hopton Titterhill. All these were separated by a series of rivers (the River Corve, the Byne Brook, the Quinny Brook, the Rivers Onny, Kemp and Clun) and it was only in these valleys that there was settlement. Most of the hills were probably waste or used only for rough grazing.

(See also Domesday Geography of Midland England, pp. 154-58, Lewis, 'Introduction', Shropshire Domesday, p. 1.)

HISTORY
Before 1086
The territory that was to become Shropshire was still an indistinguishable part of Mercia after the establishment of the shires of Wessex, all of which are mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle before the year 892: Finberg, Gloucestershire Studies, p. 18. However, by the time of the County Hidage, which probably dates from the early eleventh century, western Mercia had been shired and on a system largely consisting of mulitiples of 1200 hides: Gloucestershire and Shropshire had been apportioned 2400 hides (the latter is given as 2300 hides in one version); Worcestershire, Warwickshire, Cheshire and, probably at first, Herefordshire 1200 hides. Only Staffordshire at 500 hides was irregular, perhaps the result of the fission of a larger unit, or of a major reduction since the hidage is not proportionate to the area of land; see Hill, Atlas of Anglo-Saxon England, p. 96, figures 172-73. In the case of Shropshire, there is a suspicion that the figure should really be 1400 hides:{Introduction: Hidage}.
	This system appears to have been designed to imitate the shiring of Wessex, but since division took place at a single time, the opportunity was seized to make a regular pattern. On this, see VCH Shropshire, iii. p. 3; Thorn, 'Hundreds and Wapentakes'; the Herefordshire Domesday (Galbraith and Tait, p. 24); Gelling, West Midlands, pp. 141-45. 
	It is difficult to prove that the shires of West Mercia were in existence before the eleventh century. With the single exception of Cheshire, which is mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for 890, perhaps anachronistically, the rest of these shires are not named until the eleventh century, though mostly before 1016. Shropshire, for example, is named in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for 1006 (E version; version F has Shrewsbury), and in the entry for the year 1016 (D and E versions) - 'they went into Staffordshire and to Shrewsbury and to Chester' - Shrewsbury and Chester may well stand for the counties dependent on them: the C version has Shropshire here.
	These shires had in common the fact that each was organized around a town, fortified as a burh to resist the Danish invaders who had occupied eastern Mercia from the year 877. The Burghal Hidage, dating from between 914 and 919, gives the hidages allotted for the support of a number of such burhs in Wessex, but a note added at the end and not included in the document's total of hides allots 2400 hides to the burh of Warwick and 1200 to that of Worcester. This suggests that a similar system may have been applied to other burhs in western Mercia, possibly by Edward the Elder, or by Aethelred Ealdorman of Mercia or his wife Aethelflaed, King Alfred's daughter. The visit of Aethelred, Aethelflaed and leading Mercians to Shrewsbury in 901 may not be unconnected with this: C1 Shrewsbury note.
	In origin this was a strictly military arrangement for the maintenance of the burh's fortifications, but it is possible that other matters - administrative, fiscal and legal - were reorganized to take account of these new units, in the course of the same century. By the mid-tenth century at least, the hundreds were probably in existence as fiscal and judicial entities, and in those counties where the number of hides in Domesday Book corresponds to the number in the County Hidage a clear relation between hides and hundreds seems to have been intended. This is best illustrated by the 1086 evidence for Cheshire and Worcestershire, each of which had twelve hundreds and 1200 hides.
	This centring of shires on fortified burhs seems to have taken little account of existing subdivisions of Mercia. The boundaries of the new county may have been conditioned in the north by the mapping out of Cheshire (1200 hides in the County Hidage), the western limit being defined by the border with Wales, which except in a few instances seems to have remained where Offa (757-796) had built his dyke or at the River Severn. Its eastern limits may have corresponded with tribal areas or more likely with the allocations of a round number of hides to Warwickshire and Worcestershire. However, its southern boundary was not defined by that of the Wreocensaete, (the Wrekin-Dwellers) whose area seems to have extended to the mouths of the Rivers Dee and Mersey and so into Cheshire, but cut through the lands of the Magonsaete, whose territory was also assigned to Herefordshire and Gloucestershire. Again the deciding factor may well have been hidage. When 2400 hides were allotted to Shropshire, Herefordshire was perhaps originally given 1200 hides, but finished with an irregular allocation of 1500 hides: VCH Shropshire, iii. p. 4. The Wreocensaete ('dwellers near the Wrekin') occur (as Wocensaetna) in the eighth-century Tribal Hidage, where they are allocated 7000 hides. The Magonsaete do not appear there, but may be represented by the Westerna: Hill, Atlas of Anglo-Saxon England, p. 76 figure 136, p. 81 figure 143; Pretty, 'Defining the Magonsaete', pp. 171-83. The Diocesan boundary apparently respected this division between peoples: {Introduction: Ecclesiastical Organization}.
	Until the final conquest of Wales under Edward I, the most important influence on the geography and the government of Shropshire and of the adjacent counties to the north and south was the border with Wales which was constantly redrawn by the thrusts and retreats of English and Welsh armies or raiding parties who left as waste much of the territory on both sides of it. 
	English penetration of Wales and Welsh counter-attacks involved centuries of border warfare that continued after the date of Domesday. King Offa of Mercia (757-796) had erected a great earthwork to define the limits of his kingdom and it is instructive to compare Offa's Dyke both with the boundary of the modern county and with the pattern of English settlement recorded in Domesday. In Herefordshire (see HEF {Introduction: the Welsh Border: History}), striking advances had been made west of the Dyke, whereas in the case of Shropshire with the exception of the new Welsh dependencies, the pattern of settlement shows few gains. In the extreme south Cascob (5,6 Cascob note), also surveyed in Domesday Herefordshire (HEF 24,3), lay west of the limes as did Llanfair Waterdine and Selley (6,22. 4,20,27). Close to Montgomery, where a bay of Montgomeryshire now cuts into Shropshire to the east of the Dyke, lay a series of settlements (4,1,35-36), nine of them (excluding Montgomery itself and a few that are unidentified) lying west of the Dyke. All of them except Leighton (4,4,22) had been held under King Edward by three thanes, Siward, Oslac and Azur, and seem to represent an early tentative advance into Powys. These lands were hidated and therefore of long-standing English settlement, but they did not pay tax.
	But although the pattern of settlement shown in Domesday indicates that Offa's boundary (or, in the north between Leighton and Melverley, the line of the River Severn) had largely been maintained, a closer look at the individual entries reveals how much damage had been done by the Welsh to English manors: in 1066 most of "Merset" Hundred and the area of Leintwardine Hundred that abutted "Rinlau" Hundred south of Clun had been devastated and were only slowly recovering in 1086. The lands that lay around Montgomery were waste under King Edward and had been used for hunting; only some had a value in 1086. Moreover, Chirbury, Maesbury and Whittington (4,1,10-12), which in the reign of King Aethelred (978 or 979 to 1016) had been prosperous enough to contribute half a night's revenue (4,1,12 revenue note) were waste in 1066. In view of this, it is not surprising that Earl Roger had constructed a castle at Montgomery by 1086 and made subject to it the lands of Siward, Oslac and Azur, now held by himself and Roger [son of] Corbet; nor that his sheriff Reginald held most of "Merset" Hundred and had built a castle at Oswestry (4,1,11). The lands in these areas needed defence and regeneration before advances could be made into Wales: indeed Welshmen are recorded as living in a dozen English vills in "Merset" Hundred in 1086, and near Clun (see Domesday Geography of Midland England, p. 156 map).
	The reasons for the devastation and for the planned Norman response can be understood by examining in more detail the relationship of the English and the Welsh in the eleventh century.
	Ever since Offa had constructed his Dyke in the eighth century, periods of peace, such as when King Athelstan (927-939) received homage from Welsh princes at Hereford, alternated with times of border raiding and warfare. In the mid-eleventh century the major Welsh figure was Gruffydd ap Llewelyn ap Seisyll, ruler of Gwynedd from 1039 and of Powys probably from the same date. By 1044, after a long campaign, he had dislodged from the kingdom of Deheubarth, in the south, King Hywel ab Edwin and his successor Gruffydd ap Rhydderch ab Iestyn. He had already, in 1039, attacked a Mercian army at Rhyd y Groes ar Hafren, a ford near Welshpool, and there killed Edwin brother of Earl Leofric of Mercia. On the battle, see Loyd, History of Wales, ii. pp. 357-68; Owen, 'Battle of Rhyd y Groes'.
	By 1042 responsibility for the English frontier had passed to Earl Swein, Godwin's eldest son. In 1046, by invading South Wales, he helped Gruffydd ap Llewelyn resist Gruffydd ap Rhydderch's attempt to restore himself to the kingdom of Deheubarth. It was on his return from this campaign that Swein made Edith, Abbess of Leominster, his mistress (HEF 1,10a Leominster note). Gruffydd ap Rhydderch soon counter-attacked and in 1047 seems to have ambushed Gruffydd ap Llewelyn and restored himself to Deheubarth, driving his rival back to his northern kingdoms.
	However, the southern Gruffydd had greater ambitions. In 1049, allied with Danish pirates, he attacked Gwent Is Coed, which since 1043 had been ruled by Cadwgan of the house of Morgannwg. Gruffydd's expedition took him into the Forest of Dean and to the English manor of Tidenham lying on the west bank of the Severn. The English response, consisting of men from Hereford and Gloucester led by Aldred (Bishop of Worcester since 1047), was surprised and defeated.
	This reverse, and the frequent border raids of both Kings Gruffydd, seem to have led to a new frontier policy on the part of the English king, Edward the Confessor (1042-1066): Earl Swein was replaced by an Anglo-Norman, Earl Ralph (the Timid) of Mantes, son of Count Drogo of the Vexin and of King Edward's sister, Goda. At the same time, the first Normans, such men as Osbern Pentecost, Robert of Rhuddlan and Richard Scrope, were probably settled on the frontier, and at least one castle was erected - Pentecost Castle, predecessor of Ewyas Harold. 
	These border arrangements were soon tested, for in 1052 Gruffydd ap Llewelyn, probably invading from the north, harried the country as far as Leominster and was resisted by English and 'Frenchmen from the Castle'. Then in 1053, the other Gruffydd — Gruffydd ap Rhydderch - made an attack on the English manor of Westbury on Severn (SO7113) killing the border guards. Two years later Gruffydd ap Llewelyn had Gruffydd ap Rhydderch murdered and was at last able to secure Deheubarth. Moreover in 1055, the turbulence of the English earls played into his hands. Algar, Earl of East Anglia and son of Earl Leofric, was banished by King Edward and fled first to Ireland whence he returned with a Danish fleet and then sought help from Gruffydd. The English, under Earl Ralph, opposed him, but being ordered to fight on horseback contrary to custom, they were quickly routed. The Welsh swept to Hereford, sacked the city and plundered the Cathedral. It was probably at this time that Archenfield was devastated by Gruffydd and his successor Bleddyn, angered that it was already under some form of English control or friendly to the English.
	Earl Harold mobilized the English response to avenge the ravaging: in the same year, levies were assembled at Gloucester and with them he penetrated into Wales, pitching his camp ultra Straddele, that is, beyond the River Dore in the Golden Valley, or beyond the Golden Valley itself, but no success is reported and he seems to have given more thought to defence, fortifying the city of Hereford against further attacks, and to peace which was made with Gruffydd at a meeting at Biligesleagea, probably 'Billingsley' near Bolstone in Archenfield (on the first edition Ordnance Survey one-inch map at SO5333). Earl Algar was recalled and reinstated. But the peace was short, for Aethelstan, Bishop of Hereford (who died in 1056), had been succeeded as bishop by a soldier, Leofgar, who wasted no time in invading Wales and attacking Gruffydd above Glasbury. In the encounter Gruffydd was victorious, killing both the bishop and Alnoth the sheriff. As a result, Earls Leofric and Harold (the latter having formally succeeded Earl Ralph as Earl of Hereford on Ralph's death in 1057) with Bishop Aldred (now since 1056 Bishop of Hereford as well as of Worcester) came to make peace with Gruffydd. The Welsh king may well have been allowed to retain some of his conquests and in addition he was granted by King Edward land that had belonged to the Bishop of Chester (CHS B7) and may possibly be the Gruffydd who administered land in Gwent under King William (GLS W4). He married Aldgyth daughter of Earl Algar at about this time (see WAR 6,5; she later married Earl Harold) and swore to be a faithful under-king to King Edward.
	Peace followed, punctuated in 1058 by the second exile of Earl Algar and his reappearance in alliance with Gruffydd and Magnus son of Harold Hardrada of Norway. Gruffydd also proceeded to extend his power within Wales, attempting to control Gwent and Morgannwg, ruled over by Meurig ab Hywel and his son Cadwgan. On the death of the former, c. 1060, Gruffydd finally seized Gwent. Then in 1062, Gruffydd again renewed his devastations in England and in reply, the following year, Earls Harold and Tosti attacked Wales simultaneously by land and sea. They failed to capture Gruffydd at Rhuddlan, but he was driven beyond his own kingdoms of Gwynedd and Powys and killed by his own men. The men of Gwent and Morgannwg had probably sided with Harold against him in the final conflict.
	Although Gruffydd's devastations had left scars deep into Herefordshire and Shropshire (it was probably he who was responsible for the wasting of "Merset" Hundred, of the area round Montgomery and of the western part of Leintwardine Hundred), his death changed the political geography of Wales, and his empire was dismembered. His kingdoms of Gwynedd and Powys fell to his stepbrothers Bleddyn (died 1075) and Rhiwallon (died c. 1070), the sons of Cyfyn ap Gwerstan by Angharad the widow of Llewelyn ap Seisyll; Deheubarth returned to a nephew of Hywel ab Edwin named Maredudd ab Owain ab Edwin, that is the King Maredudd (father of another Gruffydd) of Domesday. Cadwgan ap Meurig regained Morgannwg and Caradoc son of Gruffydd ap Rhydderch succeeded to Gwynllwg and Upper Gwent. At first these kings ruled as clients of King Edward and it was probably during this period that the English penetration of Archenfield was intensified, and the first moves were made into Gwent. But the frontier was not to be secured so easily. In 1065 Caradoc ap Gruffydd ap Rhydderch suddenly fell on an English party under Earl Harold that was establishing a toe-hold in Gwent by building a hunting lodge at Portskewett (ST5088) on the banks of the Severn, below the junction with the River Wye. Further north, Edric the wild, nephew of Edric Streona (see 4,1,14 Edric note) in alliance with Kings Bleddyn and Rhiwallon, invaded Herefordshire and devastated the land as far south as the River Lugg, although repeatedly attacked by Richard Scrope. Again in 1069, Edric, now joined by Earl Edwin of Mercia and his brother Earl Morcar in alliance with King Bleddyn, revolted against King William. Although Earl Edwin soon made his peace, the rest laid siege to Shrewsbury Castle. The siege was relieved by William son of Osbern, one of the men whom King William speedily appointed to hold the troublesome frontier.
	Although Mercia had been administered after 1066 by Earl Edwin (died c. 1071), who had submitted quietly to King William (though he rebelled in 1067 and again in 1069), and from 1069 onwards effectively by Aethelwig, Abbot of Evesham, the urgency and danger of the situation on the frontier made it essential to appoint Norman overlords and settle strong Norman families to face the Welsh. After the revolt of 1069, opposition, real or imagined, was savagely crushed and much devastation wrought on the countryside.
	At about the same time new appointments were made to the frontier: Earl William son of Osbern was given charge of the long border of Gloucestershire and Herefordshire (and of the Isle of Wight), Gherbod, King William's Flemish supporter, and then Earl Hugh were given Cheshire, and Roger of Montgomery, or possibly a short-lived predecessor, was given Shropshire (and the rape of Arundel). Roger already held the Hiémois in Normandy and through marriage to Mabel of Bellême was lord of Bellême, Alençon and Séez as well. Like Earls Hugh and William, he was a 'palatine' earl, acting with royal authority in a semi-autonomous realm on the Welsh border: thus he is found administering virtually all the royal manors in Shropshire (4,1 Roger note), no 'Land of the King' being entered in the schedule, and granting some of their land and churches to his Abbey of St Peter in Shrewsbury (SHR 3b St Peter's note). Only five men - Osbern son of Richard, Ralph of Mortimer, Roger of Lacy, Hugh the ass and Nigel the doctor - held directly from the king (SHR 5-9). With the exceptions of lands in the hundreds of Condover and Shrewsbury held in 1086 by Ralph of Mortimer (Pulley, Edgbold, Sheinton, Meole Brace: 6,30-33) and of Cleobury North in "Alnodestreu" Hundred, held by Roger of Lacy (7,1), the territory of these five tenants-in-chief lay in the most southerly of the Shropshire hundreds, that is, in Leintwardine, "Culvestan", 'Overs' and 'Conditre', and overwhelmingly on the southern edge of them adjoining Herefordshire and Worcestershire. It is possible that scribal or other confusion has made the five lands not in the four southern hundreds held from the king rather than from Earl Roger. Both Ralph of Mortimer and Roger of Lacy held both from the king and from Earl Roger (SHR 6. 4,11. SHR 7. 4,8) and it may not have been easy to perceive the nature of the tenancies in every case. The other part of Pulley was held from Earl Roger (4,27,6) while Sheinton (6,32) is duplicated in Ralph of Mortimer's holding under Earl Roger (4,11,1). On the other hand, possession of these manors would give these magnates a pied à terre adjacent to the borough of Shrewsbury.
	It is possible that these men or their predecessors (his father, Walter of Lacy, in the case of Roger of Lacy) had been put in possession of their lands before Roger assumed his earldom (so VCH Shropshire, iii. p. 42) but it is more likely that in the initial phase of Norman control of the border, these lands had been administered by Earl William son of Osbern as part of Herefordshire and following his death and the forfeiture of the earldom by his son Roger they had been transferred to his subtenants, like the remainder of his Herefordshire lands. Earl William had drawn a number of Gloucestershire and Worcestershire manors into the revenue of Herefordshire, and this is a possible parallel to what happened in southern Mercia: HEF 1,39 lands note. In the case of Mawley and 2 virgates probably erroneously called "Lel" and "Fech" in Ralph of Mortimer's fief (6,3), Earl William is said to have put "Turstin" of Wigmore in possession. He is likewise found granting lands in a number of instances in Herefordshire including Downton-on-the-Rock (HEF 9,2) given to "Turstin" of Flanders (alias of Wigmore) also held in 1086 by Ralph of Mortimer. See HEF 1,3 time note on the phrase 'Earl William's time'.
	Apart from these men, only bishops and churches held from the king, while 'Earl Roger, with his men, holds the remainder', according to the Landholders' List (folio 252a). In Earl Roger's hands were twelve important manors that had been held by King Edward and others that had come from Earl Edwin and Earl Morcar and which in other county schedules would have been in King William's hands in 1086; see {Introduction: Manorial Organization}.
	Similarly in Cheshire only the Bishop of Chester and the Abbot of St Werburgh's did not hold from Earl Hugh. The king's half-brother, Count Robert of Mortain had a similar position in Cornwall, as probably did the Bishop of Bayeux in Kent. Domesday Herefordshire would no doubt have been arranged in the same way as Shropshire but for the death of Earl William son of Osbern and his son's rebellion, which led the Crown to resume the direct government of that county.
	Earls William, Hugh and Roger, these three prototypes of the later Marcher lords, all seem to have acted in the same way: they built castles, they established families on the frontier as a bulwark against the Welsh and they moved into Welsh areas. Thus Earl William settled the Lacys, the Cliffords and the Mortimers on the Welsh March in Herefordshire; he built castles at Clifford, Wigmore, Chepstow, Monmouth and probably at Caerleon, refortifying that at Ewyas Harold, and he invaded Gwent and Brycheiniog, reasserted English rights over Archenfield and seized Ewias. In Cheshire Earl Hugh established important families such as the Malbanks on the border and with the help of a pre-conquest Norman settler, Robert of Rhuddlan, established a castle at Rhuddlan and invaded North Wales: in 1086 they were holding Gwynedd (CHS G1) and the cantrefs of Rhos and Rhufoniog, that is the northern parts of Denbighshire (CHS G3).
	Likewise, Earl Roger built castles at Shrewsbury (C14) and Montgomery (4,1,35) and his sheriff Reginald built one at Oswestry (4,1,11). He settled Roger son of Corbet and his brother Robert, William Pandolf, Picot of Sai and others at the north end and middle of the border; the south was held by the lords of Richards Castle and of Wigmore in Herefordshire. He also moved into Wales, concentrating on Powys while Earl Hugh invaded Gwynedd from Cheshire. In the north-west, probably acting in concert with Earl Hugh, he had reached the commote of Ial taking Cynllaith and Edeyrnion and no doubt Nanheudwy on the way (4,1,13 district note, 4,2,1 Ial note and 4,3,42 districts note); in the south-west he held Arwystli (claimed by Robert of Rhuddlan as part of North Wales) and probably Ceri and Cydewain as well (4,1,15 district note). The unit of conquest in Wales appears to have been the commote or the cantref; individual vills are not mentioned in Domesday.

(The main Welsh sources for the period are the Bruty Tywysogyon, the Book of Llan Dav, the Annales Cambriae and the Brenhinedd y Saesson. Important English or Norman sources are the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, John of Worcester, Chronicle (which expands the account of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle), and Orderic Vitalis, Ecclesiastical History. Useful modern studies are: Edwards, 'Normans on Welsh March'; Lloyd, 'Wales and the Coming of the Normans'; Lloyd, History of Wales; Nelson, Normans in South Wales; Davies, Wales in the Early Middle Ages, pp. 112-16; Walker, 'Norman Settlement in Wales'; Walker, Norman Conquerors (which has a useful bibliography). See also VCH Herefordshire, i. pp. 263-307, 347-58; VCH Shropshire, i. pp. 279-306, iii. pp. 1-11. Lloyd's article, 'Wales and the Coming of the Normans', contains a fuller, though earlier, version of material later incorporated in his History of Wales, ii. (pp. 357-99) and an appendix giving parallel texts of the Annales Cambriae for the period. Useful historical maps are provided by Rees, South Wales and the Border; Rees, Historical Atlas of Wales.)

After 1086
On the death of William the Conqueror, Earl Roger, disapproving of the partition of the king's lands among his sons, rebelled in 1088 against Rufus along with other prominent men of the frontier such as Bernard of Neufmarché and Roger of Lacy. The revolt was soon settled but was a pointer to the dangers to the state inherent in the creation of palatine earldoms.
	Earl Roger died in 1094, was succeeded by his second son Hugh (killed in Anglesey by Norwegian invaders in 1098), then by his eldest son Robert of Bellême who had succeeded his father in his Norman lands at the time of his death. In 1102 (Anglo-Saxon Chronicle under 1102; John of Worcester, Chronicle: McGurk, iii. pp. 98-103) a disagreement arose between him and the king (Henry I). Robert had supported Duke Robert Curthose's Norman invasion of England in 1101. Robert of Bellême was summoned to court but fled to his castles (Arundel in Sussex and Bridgnorth in Shropshire): like his father Robert was both Earl of Shrewsbury and lord of the Rape of Arundel. The king laid siege to Earl Robert's castle at Arundel but was unable to take the castle so left it invested. Meanwhile, Earl Robert had refortified the fortress on the west bank of the Severn that had been constructed by Aethelflaed in 912 at Bricge (Bridgnorth; see John of Worcester, Chronicle: McGurk,iii. pp. 100-101; and 4,1,5 Morville note and 4,3,68 Oldbury note). It is unlikely that he had done the whole work hurriedly in 1102, more probable that the initial rebuilding was earlier and was unconnected with his rebellion. He thus transferred his headquarters and probably Earl Roger's church from Quatford and abandoned the nascent borough (4,1,5 Morville note and 4,1,32 Quatford note). Orderic Vitalis, Ecclesiastical History (Chibnall, v. pp. 224-26) first records the transfer without connecting it with the rebellion: oppidum de Quatford transtulit et Brugiam munitissimum castellum super Sabrinam fluvium condidit ('He transferred his fortified town from Quatford and established Bridgnorth, a very strongly fortified castle above the River Severn'). However, King Henry turned his attention to Bridgnorth. Here, in partial contradiction, Orderic Vitalis, Ecclesiastical History (Chibnall, vi. pp. 20-29) says: ibi nempe Brugiam munitissimum castrum super Sabrinam fluvium construebat ('There, in fact, he was building Bridgnorth, a very strongly fortified castle above the River Severn'). This could well mean that he was continuing to fortify his castle. King Henry took the castle and deprived Earl Robert of all his English lands and titles. The ex-earl went to the continent. Those who had held under him, but had not rebelled with him, were mostly allowed to retain their lands and become tenants-in-chief, their lands usually descending in their families for some generations. On the other hand, no new earl was appointed, the county being administered by its sheriff and initially by a local justiciar: {Introduction: Administration of the Shire}.

ADMINISTRATION OF THE SHIRE
Shropshire will have formed a part of the earldom of Mercia, held successively under King Edward by Earls Leofric, Algar and Edwin.
	The names of no pre-Conquest sheriffs are known, but the sheriff had clearly been an important figure in Shropshire under King Edward, for it was he and not the earl who received the third penny of the revenue of Shrewsbury (C12) and he and the king and not the earl and the king who gave the king's peace (C2). 
	Earl Roger of Montgomery was given the earldom of Shrewsbury as part of comprehensive arrangements for the defence of the Welsh border: {Introduction: History}. It is not certain whether he was the first to be appointed by William to this middle section of the frontier. The question of date hinges on the exact significance of the terms comes and princeps which he uses in attesting two royal writs in 1068 (Bates, Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum, nos. 181, 286, pp. 594-601, 863-65). Lewis, 'Early Earls of Norman England', argues that he was Earl of Shrewsbury by this time. To the south, Earl William son of Osbern who had charge of Herefordshire, Gloucestershire and part of Worcestershire was already dead by 1071. By that year, to the north, Gherbod had come and gone as Earl of Cheshire and been replaced by Hugh of Avranches. 
	Roger was still holding the earldom in 1086. He died in 1094. He was briefly succeeded by his son Hugh, killed in 1098, then by his younger son Robert who was deprived of the earldom in 1102. The earldom then ceased and was not revived until 1442. As a temporary measure, a justiciar was appointed to oversee at least the Montgomery estates and possibly the whole shire: he was Richard de Belmeis or de Beaumais. He had the administrative authority of an earl and endowed several monastic houses. He was appointed Bishop of London in 1108 and resigned the overlordship of Shropshire some time between 1123 and 1126. He was never explicitly called a sheriff and it seems likely that the men recorded as sheriffs for this period served under him. He was succeeded in this extraordinary capacity by Pain Fitz John who held the lordship of both Herefordshire and Shropshire, acted in concert with Miles of Gloucester on the border and was killed fighting the Welsh in 1137. Control of the county then passed to the sheriff William (I) Fitz Alan. He supported Matilda's claims to the throne and briefly held Shrewsbury against King Stephen, but fled. He was reinstated after Stephen's death (1154).
	The first Norman sheriff whose name is known and who presumably answered to Earl Roger and not to the king appears to have been Warin the bald (see Orderic Vitalis, Ecclesiastical History (Chibnall, ii. p. 414); and 4,3,8 predecessor note). He was given a group of estates in the ravaged Hundred of "Merset" and is first evidenced in 1081 and 1085. His successor was Reginald of Bailleul who held his lands from Earl Roger (4,3) and who married Warin's widow. An Arthur is also evidenced in 1086 (though not in Domesday): he was perhaps Warin's immediate successor or a subordinate of Reginald. Reginald lost or abandoned his estates in 1102 as a result of Earl Robert's rebellion. In the later part of his shrievalty, Reginald seems to have been assisted by a Fulco who is styled sheriff in 1102. Hugh son of Warin may have shared some of Fulco's responsibilities after 1102. It is possible that they were succeeded by or overlapped with Alan Fitz Flaad, ancestor of the Fitz Alan family who for some generations were the hereditary sheriffs. Alan was granted the estates held by Warin and by Reginald, and the office of sheriff may have come or been claimed with them; his son William (I) Fitz Alan and his descendants were destined to govern Shropshire and hold large estates, especially around Oswestry, for many years. 

(On all this, see VCH Shropshire, iii. pp. 7-11; Davis, England under the Normans, pp. 517-20; Green, English Sheriffs, pp. 71-72.)

COUNTY BOUNDARY
In the case of many English counties, the boundary of the shire was virtually the same in the nineteenth century as in 1086. Not so in Shropshire. On the eastern edge, the county had already been enlarged at the expense of Staffordshire before the rebellion of Earl Roger's son, Robert of Bellême, and the forfeiture of his fief in 1102; while in the south and west, major changes caused by the creation and consolidation of the medieval Marcher lordships, only partly reversed under Henry VIII, transformed the shape of the county.
Boundary with Cheshire
On the northern flank however, Shropshire's relation to Cheshire has changed only slightly. Domesday records that four places - Marbury, Norbury, Wirswall and Stoneley - had been outlying dependencies of Whitchurch before 1066 (CHS 8,21;41), but they were surveyed under Cheshire in 1086. A much more recent change (in 1895) has put Tittenley (CHS 8,33) from Cheshire into Shropshire. 
Boundary with Staffordshire
On the eastern edge of the county most of the changes were early, the result of powerful tenants-in-chief regrouping their manors for their own purposes. Thus Tyrley (4,14,5) was withdrawn to the Hundred of Pirehill in Staffordshire by William Pandolf, probably under King Henry I, to join his manor of Almington. Almington (SJ7034) was in Staffordshire in 1086 (STS 8,22) and also held by William Pandolf, whereas Tyrley (represented now by Tyrley Castle, SJ6733) was in Shropshire. The modern Civil Parish of Tyrley misleadingly incorporates both Tyrley and Almington so it is difficult to determine the 1086 county boundary at this point; it seems probable that it was provided by the Coal Brook.
	As a result of a change in a contrary direction, the manor of Cheswardine (with Chipnall), acquired by King Henry I from Robert of Stafford, came into Shropshire from Pirehill Hundred, Staffordshire, probably in the reign of King Henry II.
	The major agents of change on this side of the county, however, were Earl Roger and his sons, who between 1086 and the forfeiture of the earldom in 1102 drew ten manors into Shropshire, perhaps attempting to consolidate for themselves a semi-kingdom dependent on the Shropshire manors of Morville and Eardington (4,1,5;32) with the boroughs and castles of Quatford and Bridgnorth. These ten manors were Claverley, Kingsnordley, Alveley, and part of Sheriffhales (STS 8,1-3;5) held by Earl Roger; Worfield (STS 9,1) held by Hugh of Montgomery, and Cheswardine with Chipnall (STS 11,13) held by Robert of Stafford and to these were added Quatt, Romsley, Rudge and Shipley, also held by Earl Roger and also in Staffordshire in 1086, though listed erroneously in the Warwickshire folios (WAR 12,1-4). In the case of Sheriffhales, only part of the Ancient Parish was transferred. The rest (including Brockton Grange, held in Staffordshire in 1086 by the Shropshire sheriff, Reginald of Bailleul: STS 14,1) was only transferred to Shropshire in 1895, but a 1965 boundary change has returned Brockton Grange itself to Staffordshire. 
	In 1086, the River Severn must have formed the 1086 boundary between Shropshire and Staffordshire, apart from a small strip of Eardington manor (4,1,32), including Quatford lying on its eastern bank. 
	Also on this edge of the county, it should be noted that Bobbington was in 1086 a part of Staffordshire (STS 11,43) in Seisdon Hundred, held by Helgot under Robert of Stafford. A member, Whittimere, was later attached to Claverley (STS 8,1) which Earl Roger had put into Shropshire, and so itself came into Shropshire. Since 1895 however, Whittimere has been returned to Staffordshire.
	Rudge, though placed in Shropshire by 1102 was, in the Middle Ages, counted as a part of Pattingham Ancient Parish which remained in Staffordshire.
	In 1086, Woore (4,15,2) was in Shropshire, but it became part of Mucklestone Ancient Parish, the bulk of which was in Staffordshire, at an unknown date.
Boundary with Worcestershire
Halesowen, a manor of Earl Roger, surveyed in Worcestershire in 1086 (WOR 14,1), was transferred to Shropshire soon afterwards, probably by Earl Roger himself, together with its member, the part of Warley known as Warley Salop. Although Halesowen was always geographically isolated from Shropshire, the arrangement persisted until the successive return of parts to Worcestershire in 1832 and 1844; see VCH Shropshire, i. pp. 204, 233, iii. pp. 3, 43; VCH Worcestershire, i. pp. 238, 308-309, iii. pp. 141-42; and 4,1,19 Ellesmere note.
	In the entry for Morville (4,1,5) it is recorded that Chawson 'in Worcestershire' was an outlier in 1086. The possession of Chawson probably gave the important royal manor of Morville a share of the salt-rights at Droitwich: 4,1,5 Chawson note
	At the southern end of this border a minor change transferred the parish of Dowles, not mentioned by name in Domesday (but see 4,1,30 Stottesdon note), to Worcestershire in 1895. 
Boundary with Herefordshire
The chapelry of Farlow, long an outlier of Leominster in Herefordshire, though also mentioned under the Shropshire Hundred of 'Conditre' (4,28,5. HEF 1,10a) was transferred to Shropshire in 1844.
	South of Ludlow, the 1086 border with Herefordshire appears to have been the River Teme. Thus Ludford lay in Herefordshire (HEF 24,12) as did a number of lands such as Moor, Overton, Woofferton and part of Ashford Bowdler, not named in Domesday, but dependent on Richards Castle (HEF 24,13). These were soon moved into Shropshire; a further part of Ludford was transferred in 1895. Another part of Asford Bowdler was a member of Bromfield (3d,6), but was also moved to Herefordshire.
	Further along this southern border, a large portion of what is now Herefordshire lay in Shropshire. Eastwards of Presteigne it is likely that the 1086 boundary ran along the River Lugg to a point one mile north-west of Aymestrey, where it probably doubled back north-westwards to follow a tributary of the Lugg, passing south of Lower Lye (probably in Herefordshire in 1086), while Upper Lye appears to have been in Shropshire (6,16 Lye note) then following higher ground to the west of Wigmore, crossing between Wigmore and Adforton to join the Roman road or the River Teme, skirting Leintwardine to the east and then probably following the existing boundary along the River Clun to the north-west of Leintwardine.
	While a few manors in the northern portion of Leintwardine Hundred paid suit to the Shropshire hundred courts in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries and so continued to form part of the county, most of the hundred came under the jurisdiction of Marcher lords and only occasional reference is made in early medieval documents to their being in Shropshire. The majority of these places - Adforton, Adley (part), Brampton Bryan, Buckton, Kinsham, Leintwardine (part), Letton, Lingen, Lye, Pedwardine, Shirley, 'Stanway', 'Tumberland' and Walford - held by Ralph of Mortimer in 1086, went into the Mortimer lordship of Wigmore and were gradually lost to the county, being mostly mentioned as part of Herefordshire by the fourteenth century but only formally transferred there in 1536 at the dissolution of the Marcher lordships. A further part of Leintwardine parish (north side) went to Herefordshire in 1895. 
Boundary with Wales: the Marcher lordships
To the west of this group of manors, another block of five or six manors, all in Leintwardine Hundred in 1086 - Knighton and Norton held by Hugh the ass (8,1-2), and Kinsham, Stanage, Cascob and Ackhill (5,4-7) held by Richard son of Osbern - were also gradually lost to the county. They were placed in Radnorshire at its creation in 1536. Even in 1086 the boundaries between Shropshire, Herefordshire and the Welsh must have been fluid: Cascob lying south of the River Lugg was included both in Herefordshire and Shropshire (5,6 Cascob note and HEF 24,3 Cascob note), while Pilleth, on its north side, was included in Herefordshire.
	The Marcher lordships, semi-autonomous fiefs, made their greatest inroads into the county on its western side. Here the Corbets, the Mortimers and the Fitz Alans consolidated for themselves great tracts of land facing the Welsh and subject only to their castles or chief manors. These changes were not by statute nor made at a single time, but, by the thirteenth century, the king's writ, the authority of the king's justices and English common law seemed not to apply or to apply only intermittently to the western halves of the Domesday hundreds of "Rinlau", Wittery, "Reweset" and "Merset" and suit had been largely lost to their hundred courts.
	Thus "Rinlau" Hundred had been divided by the early thirteenth century, the western half becoming the Fitz Alan Liberty of Clun, the eastern half the Shropshire hundred of Purslow. Clun Liberty went briefly to Montgomeryshire at its creation in 1536, but was returned to Shropshire in 1546. In the area that became this Liberty, Domesday only records the manor of Clun (4,20,8); it is not clear how much of the land to the west (what is now the Forest of Clun) was in Shropshire in 1086. It is sometimes assumed that the 1086 boundary lay just to the west of the settlements of Lydbury North and Clun. A study of the later constituents of these manors suggests, however, that settlement in this area at least reached Offa's Dyke, even if it did not extend as far as the westernmost tip of the bulge described by the pre-1974 county, the Ancient Parish of Betws-y-Crwyn. Newcastle (SO2482) is the only known constituent of the manor of Clun that lay west of Offa's Dyke, but its name probably implies a post-1086 development.
	In Domesday, Wittery Hundred contained a large number of places that lay west of the modern county boundary. With the exception of Churchstoke (4,27,25) and Leighton (4,4,22) these were, in 1086, surveyed as part of the castlery of Montgomery (4,1,35-36) and so were already not fully in the county. After 1086, the eastern half of Wittery Hundred became Chirbury Hundred, while the western half was divided between the lordships of Montgomery (confirmed on Baldwin de Boilers by King Henry I: 4,1,15 Montgomery note) and Halcetor and the Welshry of Upper Gorddwr dependent on the Corbets, lords of Cause (Cawrse). The re-drawing of the county boundary under King Henry VIII put these lordships into Montgomeryshire. The Welsh name Gorddwr means 'land beyond the water', that is to the east (on the English side) of the River Severn. It may at first have denoted an ill-defined region, though later the combined area of Nether and Upper Gorddwr corresponded roughly to that of the modern Civil Parishes of Bausley, Forden, Middletown, Trelystan and Trewern: Richards, Welsh Administrative and Territorial Units, p. 79; Morgan, 'Montgomeryshire Territorial Divisions', pp. 38-44.
	"Reweset" Hundred very largely became Ford Hundred, but the Corbets withdrew a large tract of territory including their great manor of Trewern (4,1,8) to form the Welshry of Nether Gorddwr. Their other lordship, that of Cause, dependent on Cause castle (see 4,4 Roger note and 4,4,20 Worthen note) and constructed from lands that lay in Ford and Chirbury Hundreds, seems to have been indeterminately Welsh and English. The sixteenth century boundary changes restored almost all of these lands to Shropshire but Trewern and Bausley were lost to Wales, part only of Bausley returning from Montgomeryshire and being joined to the Civil Parish of Alberbury with Cardeston in Shropshire in 1876-1882.
	After 1086 the whole of "Merset" Hundred was broken up into a complex series of Marcher lordships. The most important, that of Oswestry (belonging to the Fitz Alans), was withdrawn from the county by the beginning of the thirteenth century, but there were also the major lordships of Knockin (Lestrange under Fitz Alan) and obscurer ones at Whittington and Maesbrook. To these was joined the lordship of Ruyton (Lestrange under Fitz Alan) which had been in Baschurch Hundred in 1086, then in Pimhill Hundred. For a time Ellesmere (also in Pimhill Hundred) formed a lordship. These were more or less lost to the county in the Middle Ages but were all restored in 1536 as the Hundred of Oswestry. 
	In this north-west corner of Shropshire, the 1086 extent of the manors of Maesbury and Whittington (4,1,11-12) is uncertain. Whittington may have extended to include the territory of the Ancient Parish of Selattyn while Maesbury may have included the land of Llanyblodwel Ancient Parish and part of Llanymynech Ancient Parish, unless these lands only came to Shropshire in 1536 at the dissolution of the Marcher lordships. Llanyblodwel lay beyond Offa's Dyke, as did Sychtyn which may similarly have been a part of Maesbury in 1086. It was later a part of Llansilin Ancient Parish, the bulk of which lay in Denbeighshire after 1536. It is not certain whether these border places, which do not appear under their own name in Domesday Book, were in the shire in 1086 or only came into it at the abolition of the Marcher lordships in 1536.
	Along this border, Domesday also mentions a series of Welsh dependencies of the county, naming Cynllaith and Edeyrnion attached to "Merset" Hundred (4,3,42) as well as Ial (4,2,1), and implying the existence also of Arwystli, Ceri, Cydewain and Nanheudwy (see 4,1,13 district note, 4,1,15 district note and {Introduction: History}. They were never incorporated into the county.

It needs to be emphasized that medieval documents normally name places without giving their boundaries and that the first really accurate maps date from the early nineteenth century. Thus there remains some doubt about the exact lie of boundaries that were subject to early change. Even when account is taken of likely dependencies of named Domesday manors, the border with Wales cannot be accurately described, just as on the other flanks the earliness of some changes to the county boundary defies exact mapping. Thus the 1086 boundary between Shropshire and Herefordshire can only be conjectured along most of its length; the exact line of the boundary that incorporated Tyrley in Shropshire cannot be determined and the fact that the River Severn was the boundary between Shropshire and eight manors, assigned by Domesday to Staffordshire and Warwickshire but early transferred to the county by Earl Roger or his sons, though likely can only be conjectured. The changes are baldly summarized below.

PLACE	1086	LATER	
SHROPSHIRE/ CHESHIRE BORDER

TITTENLEY (CHS 8,33)	

Entirely in Cheshire	

Transferred to Shropshire in 1895	
SHROPSHIRE/ STAFFORDSHIRE BORDER

ALVELEY (STS 8,3)

BOBBINGTON (STS 11,13)

BROCKTON [GRANGE] (STS 14,1)

CHESWARDINE (STS 11,13)

CHIPNALL (STS 11,13)

CLAVERLEY (STS 8,1)

KINGSNORDLEY (STS 8,2)

QUATT (WAR 12,8)

ROMSLEY (WAR 12,9)

RUDGE (WAR 12,10)

SHERIFFHALES (STS B4. 8,5)

SHIPLEY (WAR 12,11)

TYRLEY (SHR 4,14,5)

WORFIELD (STS 9,1) 

Entirely in Staffordshire

Probably divided between Shropshire and Staffordshire in 1086, but the Shropshire portion was not named in Domesday

Entirely in Staffordshire

Entirely in Staffordshire

Entirely in Staffordshire

Entirely in Staffordshire

Entirely in Staffordshire

Entirely in Staffordshire†

Entirely in Staffordshire†

Entirely in Staffordshire†

Entirely in Staffordshire

Entirely in Staffordshire†

Entirely in Shropshire

Entirely in Staffordshire

	

Transferred to Shropshire before 1102

The Shropshire portion was transferred to Staffordshire in 1895

Transferred to Shropshire in 1895; transferred back to Staffordshire in 1965

Transferred to Shropshire before 1166

Transferred to Shropshire before 1166

Transferred to Shropshire before 1102

Transferred to Shropshire before 1102

Transferred to Shropshire before 1102

Transferred to Shropshire before 1102

Transferred to Shropshire before 1102

Part transferred to Shropshire in the twelfth century, part in 1895

Transferred to Shropshire before 1102

Transferred to Staffordshire early in the twelfth century

Transferred to Shropshire before 1102 	
SHROPSHIRE/ WORCESTERSHIRE BORDER

DOWLES (part of Stottesdon 4,1,30)

HALESOWEN (WOR 14,1)	

Entirely in Shropshire

Entirely in Worcestershire

Transferred to Worcestershire in 1895

Transferred to Shropshire before 1102; returned to Worcestershire in 1844
	
SHROPSHIRE/ HEREFORDSHIRE BORDER ‡

ADFORTON (SHR 6,13)

ADLEY (SHR 4,20,6. 6,27-28)

BRAMPTON [BRYAN]
(SHR 6,23)

BUCKTON (SHR 6,21)

FARLOW (HEF 1,10a. SHR 4,28,5)

KINSHAM (SHR 5,4)

LEINTWARDINE 
(SHR 4,20,20. 6,11)

LETTON (SHR 6,18)

LINGEN (SHR 6,14)

[UPPER] LYE (SHR 6,16)

LUDFORD (HEF 24,12)

PEDWARDINE (SHR 6,24-26)

SHIRLEY (SHR 6,15) 

'STANWAY' (SHR 6,12)

'TUMBERLAND' (SHR 6,17)

WALFORD (SHR 6,19-20)

Entirely in Shropshire

Entirely in Shropshire

Entirely in Shropshire

Entirely in Shropshire

Part lay in a Shropshire hundred, but belonged to Leominster (Herefordshire) and assessed there, with the rest

Entirely in Shropshire

Entirely in Shropshire

Entirely in Shropshire

Entirely in Shropshire

Entirely in Shropshire

Entirely in Herefordshire

Entirely in Shropshire

Entirely in Shropshire

Entirely in Shropshire

Entirely in Shropshire

Entirely in Shropshire	

Drawn into a Marcher lordship; placed in Herefordshire in 1536

Drawn into a Marcher lordship; placed in Herefordshire in 1536

Drawn into a Marcher lordship; placed in Herefordshire in 1536

Drawn into a Marcher lordship; placed in Herefordshire in 1536

Transferred to Herefordshire probably in the twelfth century; returned to Shropshire in 1844

Drawn into a Marcher lordship; placed in Herefordshire in 1536

Drawn into a Marcher lordship; placed in Herefordshire in 1536

Drawn into a Marcher lordship; placed in Herefordshire in 1536

Drawn into a Marcher lordship; placed in Herefordshire in 1536

Drawn into a Marcher lordship; placed in Herefordshire in 1536

Part was transferred to Shropshire probably in the twelfth century; the rest in 1895

Drawn into a Marcher lordship; placed in Herefordshire in 1536

Drawn into a Marcher lordship; placed in Herefordshire in 1536

Drawn into a Marcher lordship; placed in Herefordshire in 1536

Drawn into a Marcher lordship; placed in Herefordshire in 1536

Drawn into a Marcher lordship; placed in Herefordshire in 1536
	
BORDER WITH WALES‡

ACKHILL (SHR 5,7)

ACKLEY (SHR  4,1,36)

ASTON (SHR  4,1,35)

BAUSLEY (SHR 4,4,8)

CASTLEWRIGHT  (SHR 4,1,35)

CASCOB (HEF 24,3. SHR 5,6)

CHURCHSTOKE (SHR 4,27,25)

EDDERTON (SHR 4,1,36)

FORDEN (SHR 4,1,36)

THE GAER (SHR 4,1,36)

HEM (SHR 4,1,36)

HOPTON (SHR 4,1,35)

'HORSEWALL' (SHR 4,1,36)

KNIGHTON (SHR 8,1)

LEIGHTON (SHR 4,4,22)

MELLINGTON (SHR 4,1,35)

MONTGOMERY (SHR 4,1,15; 35)

NORTON (SHR 8,2)

PEN-Y-LAN (SHR 4,1,35)

STANAGE (SHR 5,5)

'STARCOTE' (SHR 4,1,36)

TRELYSTAN (SHR 4,1,35)

TREWERN (SHR 4,1,8)

WESTON [MADOC]
(SHR 4,1,36)

WROPTON (SHR 4,1,36)

Entirely in Shropshire

Entirely in Shropshire

Entirely in Shropshire

Entirely in Shropshire

Entirely in Shropshire

Part in Shropshire, part in Herefordshire (possibly duplicated)

Entirely in Shropshire

Entirely in Shropshire

Entirely in Shropshire

Entirely in Shropshire

Entirely in Shropshire

Entirely in Shropshire

Entirely in Shropshire

Entirely in Shropshire

Entirely in Shropshire

Entirely in Shropshire

Entirely in Shropshire

Entirely in Shropshire

Entirely in Shropshire

Entirely in Shropshire

Entirely in Shropshire

Entirely in Shropshire

Entirely in Shropshire

Entirely in Shropshire

Entirely in Shropshire

Drawn into a Marcher lordship; placed in Radnorshire in 1536

Drawn into a Marcher lordship; placed in Montgomeryshire in 1536  

Drawn into a Marcher lordship; placed in Montgomeryshire in 1536

Drawn into a Marcher lordship; placed in Montgomeryshire in 1536

Drawn into a Marcher lordship; placed in Montgomeryshire in 1536

Drawn into a Marcher lordship; placed in Radnorshire in 1536

Drawn into a Marcher lordship; placed in Montgomeryshire in 1536

Drawn into a Marcher lordship; placed in Montgomeryshire in 1536

Drawn into a Marcher lordship; placed in Montgomeryshire in 1536

Drawn into a Marcher lordship; placed in Montgomeryshire in 1536

Drawn into a Marcher lordship; placed in Montgomeryshire in 1536

Drawn into a Marcher lordship; placed in Montgomeryshire in 1536

Drawn into a Marcher lordship; placed in Montgomeryshire in 1536

Drawn into a Marcher lordship; placed in Radnorshire in 1536

Drawn into a Marcher lordship; placed in Montgomeryshire in 1536

Drawn into a Marcher lordship; placed in Montgomeryshire in 1536

Drawn into a Marcher lordship; placed in Montgomeryshire in 1536

Drawn into a Marcher lordship; placed in Radnorshire in 1536

Drawn into a Marcher lordship; placed in Montgomeryshire in 1536

Drawn into a Marcher lordship; placed in Radnorshire in 1536

Drawn into a Marcher lordship; placed in Montgomershire in 1536

Drawn into a Marcher lordship; placed in Montgomeryshire in 1536

Drawn into a Marcher lordship; placed in Montgomeryshire in 1536

Drawn into a Marcher lordship; placed in Montgomeryshire in 1536

Drawn into a Marcher lordship; placed in Montgomeryshire in 1536

†  These places were included in Domesday Warwickshire, but almost certainly in error: WAR 12,8 entry note.

‡  Only included here are those places that were moved to other counties on the abolition of the Marcher lordships. Clun (4,20,8) was initially placed in Montgomeryshire in 1536, but returned to Shropshire in 1546.

(Information concerning the county boundary can be found in VCH Shropshire, i. pp. 285-88, ii. pp. 204-11, iii. pp. 1-11, 33-53; Domesday Geography of Midland England, p. 113; Richards, Welsh Administrative and Territorial Units; Rees, 'Union of England and Wales'; Rees, South Wales and the Border; Rees, Historical Atlas of Wales; Youngs, Local Administrative Units, ii. pp. 379-98.
	On the lordships, see Davies, 'Lordships and Manors'; Morgan, 'Montgomeryshire Territorial Divisions'. There are useful maps in Rees, Historical Atlas of Wales and in VCH Shropshire, iii. pp. 8, 9, 40.) 

THE WELSH AREAS
In 1086 English settlement was largely delimited by Offa's Dyke as presumably it had been in the late eighth century. Only Llanfair Waterdine, Selley? and Cascob (6,22. 4,20,27. 5,6. HEF 24,3) are recorded by Domesday Book as lying west of the line of the Dyke, apart from a group of places close to Montgomery Castle (Leighton, Edderton, Pen y Lan, Forden, The Gaer, 'Horsewall', 'Starcote', Weston Madoc, Hopton) which seem to represent an isolated English thrust into Powys. All of the latter except Leighton (held by a Siward) had been held T.R.E. by Siward, Oslac and Azur; they were hidated but did not pay geld (4,1,35-36). There is thus no equivalent in Shropshire to the considerable penetration and incorporation of Welsh areas into English counties that had taken place in Herefordshire and Cheshire T.R.E. The Conqueror's policy seems to have been to stabilize the frontier by appointing earls for its supervision. In their turn they settled families of retainers as a bulwark against the Welsh, built castles and began the incorporation of Wales into England by war or negotiation. Earl Roger campaigned in Wales or obtained money and submission by other means. Domesday names or implies the existence of a number of areas which, though only vaguely described, paid lump sums either as a tax or perhaps to ward off invasion. Thus beyond the north-western edge of the county, adjacent to Cheshire, Roger had acquired Ial and any possible conflict of interest with Earl Hugh of Cheshire was resolved by making Hugh the undertenant of Roger (4,2,1 Ial note).
	Ial could only have been held if the commotes of Cynllaith, Edeyrnion and Nanheuddwy had also been annexed to Shropshire. The first two are mentioned in the sub-fief of Reginald the sheriff (who had presumably attached them to his castle of Oswestry or to "Merset" Hundred): 4,3,42 districts note. The third is almost certainly the '1 Welsh district' held by Tudur under Earl Roger, apparently attached to "Merset" Hundred assuming that the "Merset" hundred head is correctly placed above Maesbury and governs this entry. Tudur is probably Tudur ap Rhys Sais: 4,1,13 district note.
	Further south Earl Roger had 'one district of Wales' attached to his castle of Montgomery. An entry in the Cheshire folios suggests that this was Arwystli, held by Earl Roger but claimed by Robert of Rhuddlan, because Arwystli, though detached, belonged to North Wales (Gwynedd) rather than to Powys. Annexation of Arwystli implies the taking of Cydewain and Ceri, into which English lands dependent on Montgomery castle had already intruded: 4,1,15 district note.

HIDAGE
The hidage of the county, perhaps originally 2400 hides (see {Introduction: History}), had been reduced to about 1400 by 1086. Maitland, Domesday Book and Beyond, p. 456, calculated a total of 1245 hides, VCH Shropshire, i. p. 281, found 1438 hides. There were 15 hundreds in the county in 1086 (though Patton Hundred and "Culvestan" Hundred may once have been combined: both depended on 'Corfham', 4,1,6). At first sight, these discrepant figures suggest that a reduction in the county's assessment was made, similar to the one that affected Northamptonshire (NTH {Introduction: Hidation}). However, there is no sign that original round figures (say of five hides) have been proportionately reduced. If they had been, there would be a large number of fractions among the hidage of the 1086 Shropshire estates, whereas in fact there are many estates assessed in round figures. Moreover, there is considerable continuity between the hidages given in charters and the size of the estates in Domesday. It is possible that any reduction was only selectively applied, for many of the ex-royal estates (in 4,1) benefit from having a small number of hides compared to their plough-teams. On the other hand, there are many multiples of five among these former royal estates and the reduced hidage may well date from the time when the hundreds were laid out or the county was first assessed for Danegeld, if not before. In fact these figures raise the question as to whether the figure of 2400 in the County Hidage is mistaken.

HUNDREDS
The Names of the Hundreds
Name used in this edition	Form(s) found in Domesday Book	

"Alnodestreu"

Baschurch

'Conditre'

Condover

"Culvestan"

Hodnet

Leintwardine

"Merset"

'Overs'

Patton

"Reweset"

"Rinlau"

Shrewsbury or the City Hundred

Wittery

Wrockwardine
	
Alnodestreu, Elnoelstrui, Elnoelstruil, Elnoelstrul

Basecherc, Basecherch, Basecherche, Bascherche

Condetret, Condretret

Conedovre, Conendovre, Conodovre

Colmestan,† Colmestane,†  Culvestan

Hodenet, Odenet

Lenteurd, Lenteurde

Merset, Mersete

Ovre, Ovret

Patinton, Patintun, Patintune

Reweset, Ruesset

Derinlau,‡ Rinlau

Sciropesberie, Hund(redum) civitatis

Witentrei, Witentreu, Witetrei, Witetreu

Recordin, Recordine

†  These forms of the name seem to be the result of assimilation to the name of Culmington manor (Domesday Comintone) which lay in the hundred in 1086. Whereas Culmington, whose early forms apart from Domesday's have an –l-, probably means 'estate of a man called Cuthhelm' (Place-Names of Shropshire, i. p. 105), the hundred name "Culvestan" means 'Cuthwulf's stone' (Anderson, English Hundred Names, p. 159).

‡  The form Derinlau is probably the result of Rinlau being combined with the Latin preposition de drawn from a phrase such as in hundredo de Rinlau.

Reconstructing the Hundreds
Thanks to the hundredal rubrication provided by Domesday, the content of the 1086 hundreds can largely be reconstructed although about twenty per cent of the necessary hundred heads appear to be missing: {Introduction: Hundred Heads}. A few seem to be misplaced or erroneous. One must always be cautious in pointing to 'errors' in Domesday, but 'Charlton' (3g,9) must be wrongly placed beneath a "Culvestan" hundred head. In the case of Charlcotte the Great Domesday scribe had mistakenly added a Wrockwardine hundred head in the wrong place; see 4,21,13 Wrockwardine note. 
	A similar, but more difficult, case is that of the three headings for Baschurch Hundred  at 4,9,1. 4,11,5 and 7,1. If the headings are correct then Shifnal (4,9,1) and probably Kemberton (4,9,2), Eudon George and probably Chelmarsh, Sidbury, Neenton, Burwarton and Cosford (4,11,5-10) as well as Cleobury North (7,1) lying in the south of the county will have been detached parts of the northern hundred of Baschurch. This is accepted by Eyton (Antiquities of Shropshire, ii. pp. 258-59 table), by VCH Shropshire (i. p. 283, iii. p. 8 map), and by Anderson (English Hundred Names, p. 154). There are, however, reasons for not accepting the statements of Domesday: there is no clear tenurial reason why these estates should be attached to Baschurch Hundred since they are not church lands and they are not, despite Eyton's argument (Antiquities of Shropshire, ii. p. 259), the isolated manors of lords who are paramount in Baschurch Hundred. Secondly, genuine detachments of a hundred are in other cases in Domesday always intermingled with places that lay in the main body of the hundred since within each hundredal group in a fief there was no attempt to arrange places in their topographical relation. But neither Kemberton, nor any of the places following Eudon George, lay in the body of Baschurch Hundred. Finally, it is likely that in all these cases the real 1086 hundred is one and the same, that of "Alnodestreu" and that in the three cases the scribe has substituted one name erroneously for another, perhaps because at an earlier stage of the Enquiry the names were indicated on lists by figures which it was easy to confuse or because he had in mind a standard order of the hundreds of Shropshire in which Baschurch Hundred preceded "Alnodestreu": {Introduction: Standard Order of Hundreds}. 
	As recorded in Domesday, Plaish (4,8,12) lay in Leintwardine Hundred and would thus have been a detachment, cut off from another part of the hundred by "Culvestan" and Patton Hundreds. There seems no tenurial reason for this isolation and it is possible that the scribe erroneously inserted the name of the hundred that lay next after "Culvestan" in the 'standard sequence'. This detachment has nevertheless been generally accepted because "Culvestan" Hundred also had a nearby detachment and Leintwardine Hundred itself had a further two portions. The question of the hundred in which Plaish lay in 1086 depends on how far Patton Hundred had expanded and whether Leintwardine and "Culvestan" Hundreds were once a unit. This is discussed below.
	There is one evident deficiency at the beginning of a sub-chapter in the fief of Earl Roger where a hundred heading (presumably Hodnet Hundred) is missing above the joint holding of Ralph the cook and Toki at 4,27,1. It is possible (though not in this particular case) that where the hundred that begins one sub-chapter is the same as the one that ended the previous one, the scribe did not feel it necessary to repeat the head. This occurs quite often in other Domesday counties. On the other hand, the scribe inserted the same hundred head as ended the previous sub-fief at the beginning of the sub-fiefs of William Pandolf, Osbern, Picot and Hugh son of Thorgisl (4,14;17;20;22).
	There is also a marked absence of hundred headings from the demesne lands of Earl Roger himself, although to some extent the details of hundreds dependent on manors (4,1,4-6;9-11) may have been intended to supply them. In the case of the first three manors in this fief, Wrockwardine, Condover and Baschurch (4,1,1-3), hundred heads are supplied. However, the phrasing in these cases is 'From Wrockwardine Hundred two pennies belonged to this manor before 1066', or the equivalent. This does not say, in so many words, that the hundred belonged to the manor whereas in the entries that follow, where no hundred heads were included, the formula is 'it pays £8 with the hundred [Hodnet] that belonged to the manor' (4,1,4) or 'The whole of "Alnodestreu" Hundred belongs to this manor' (etc.). However, this method, if it was one, failed to include Minsterley and Trewern (4,1,7-8) in "Reweset" Hundred. In fact only five headings actually occur in this sub-chapter as a whole (which contains 37 entries), whereas it seems necessary to insert another nine even allowing for the hundreds to be deduced from the entries at 4,1,4-6;9-11. A further four are given in the additional demesne lands in 4,28. It is possible that these lands, while included in hundreds, were treated as the Terra Regis is in other counties: subjected to a separate return and with hundred heads only casually supplied.
	There is also some difficulty in determining the boundaries of some hundreds. Thus, the boundary between Wrockwardine and "Alnodestreu" Hundreds depends on the hundreds in which Dawley Magna (4,1,22), Dawley Parva (4,3,28), Shifnal (4,9,1), Kemberton (4,9,2), Donington (4,1,25) and Tong (4,1,24) lay. It has been assumed that Dawley Magna and Dawley Parva were in Wrockwardine Hundred (heading above Eaton Constantine at 4,3,21), and Tong and Donington in "Alnodestreu" Hundred (heading restored above 4,1,24). Shifnal and Kemberton, found beneath the erroneous Baschurch hundred head at 4,9,1, were also probably in "Alnodestreu" Hundred.
	Settling the boundary between "Alnodestreu" and 'Conditre' rests on the headings to be placed above Stottesdon (4,1,30) and Overton (4,11,16). Stottesdon can perhaps be included in 'Conditre' Hundred since the moot-site lay in the parish: {Introduction: Moot-Sites}. Overton appears as the last of a group of places in 'Conditre' Hundred, yet it lay geographically within "Alnodestreu", separated from 'Conditre' by both Pickthorn and 'Fouswardine', though it lay in Stottesdon Ancient Parish (4,1,30 hundred note). 
	The allocation of Acton Scott, Strefford, Westhope, Stokesay and Aldon (none of which is found directly below a hundred head) to Leintwardine Hundred or "Culvestan" Hundred depends in part on assuming a regular sequence of these hundreds in each fief or sub-fief where heads are missing. Restoration assumes that places in "Culvestan" Hundred preceded those in Leintwardine Hundred. The inclusion of the places called Stretton (All Stretton, Church Stretton, Little Stretton) in a detachment of "Culvestan" Hundred, whose existence is already evidenced by Cardington and Hope Bowdler, depends on a crucial restoration at 4,1,27. Acceptance of Beckbury (4,26,5) as a detachment of Patton Hundred relies on the fact, not mentioned in Domesday, that it is land alienated from Wenlock Priory.
	In other cases later evidence causes a Domesday hundred head to be questioned, without proving that it should be removed. For example, Moreton Corbet is later found in 'Bradford' Hundred, the successor to Hodnet and Wrockwardine, but it falls directly below a Baschurch hundred head at 4,19,9. Ruyton-Eleven-Towns (4,18,2) is later in Oswestry Hundred (successor to "Merset" Hundred), but the way in which woodland is assessed proves that it did not lie in that hundred in 1086; Domesday suggests that it lay in Baschurch Hundred (head above 4,18,1); see {Introduction: The Domesday Format}. Madeley, though north of the River Severn, seems, like Little Wenlock, to have lain in Patton Hundred in 1086 (the diocesan and hundredal boundaries coinciding at this point), though these places were later in Brimstree Hundred (successor to "Alnodestreu" Hundred). Likewise Buildwas, though also north of the River Severn, is said to lie in Condover Hundred in 1086. Although it was later in 'Bradford' Hundred, a fact which might call the 1086 hundred head into question, the woodland details show that in 1086 it was certainly not in Wrockwardine Hundred, the predecessor of 'Bradford' Hundred.
	These uncertainties are few in relation to the many certainties that Domesday offers. Not all hundredal boundaries are determined by changes in the ownership or composition of estates. Geographical features undoubtedly played a part in defining the bounds of hundreds as of the manors which they incorporated. The River Perry divided "Merset" from Baschurch Hundred, while the latter was separated from Hodnet Hundred by the River Roden. The River Severn for almost its entire transit of the county defined the border of hundreds or of the county itself. Condover and "Rinlau" Hundreds were marked off from "Culvestan" Hundred and Leintwardine Hundred by the ridge of the Long Mynd, while Wenlock Edge, the Brown Clee Hill and the Ledwyche Brook were lesser delimiters.

The 1086 Pattern
If the composition of the hundreds is deduced from the above evidence and its interpretation, the 1086 pattern is revealed as essentially a simple one. In other counties, such as Worcestershire and Gloucestershire, scattered ecclesiastical hundreds have disturbed a layout of 'compact' geographical hundreds, creating a large number of detached parts. But in Shropshire no hundred is definitely ecclesiastical and only Beckbury (4,26,5), a detached part of Patton Hundred within "Alnodestreu" Hundred, recalls the tendency of church holdings to be attached not to their secular neighbours but to their church, however remote.
	There are some notable features among these reconstructed hundreds. The hundred of Shrewsbury city was assessed at an exact 100 hides before 1066 and, like the borough of Cambridge and others, extended beyond the city wall to incorporate a number of manors in a dependent rural area. Many of the 100 hides may well have been only an assessment for geld and not have been related to agriculture, but some were: Meole Brace (1,3. 3d,3. 6,33), Shelton (1,4) and Sutton (3c,12) were vills included within the hundred. The boroughs of Chester and Huntingdon were assessed at 50 hides T.R.E. and Bedford counted as a half-hundred.
	Patton Hundred contained many of the manors of Wenlock Priory, but it does not appear to have been in origin a church hundred, unless much of the priory's stock had been alienated by 1086: SHR 3c St Milburga's note. Moreover, the priory held other lands such as Deuxhill (3c,10), Pickthorn (3c,11) and Cleestanton (3c,13) which could have been included in Patton Hundred, if it were an ecclesiastical Liberty, but which were in fact placed by Domesday in adjacent hundreds. However, its relation to 'Corfham' (4,1,6), the caput it shared with "Culvestan" Hundred, requires further discussion below. 	It may be that the particular shape of Patton Hundred in 1086 was the result of a process of expansion that began before 1086 and continued after it. Thus Madeley and Little Wenlock (3c,4-5), both lying north of the River Severn, may once have been in Wrockwardine or "Alnodestreu" Hundreds, though the diocesan boundary follows the same course. Beckbury (4,26,5) probably became an outlying portion of Patton Hundred because of its Wenlock connection while Stoke St Milborough (3c,9) may have been taken into this hundred some time after its formation, perhaps from "Culvestan" Hundred. The assumed 1086 boundary of Stoke St Milborough almost isolates Cleestanton (in "Culvestan" in 1086) from its hundred, suggesting perhaps that Stoke St Milborough itself was once in "Culvestan" Hundred.
	On its western edge, another Wenlock manor, Ticklerton, lying in Patton Hundred, severed one portion of "Culvestan" Hundred (comprising All Stretton, Church Stretton, Little Stretton, Cardington and Hope Bowdler) from another, whereas it may once have been in "Culvestan", thus permitting that hundred to be a single unit. 
	On the southern edge of the county, Leintwardine Hundred  appears to have been pinched into two halves by the touching of "Rinlau" and "Culvestan" Hundreds, Leaving aside Plaish (see above), its northern portion contained Chelmick (4,22,1), Minton and Wittingslow (4,28,4), Acton Scott (4,27,33), Woolston (4,20,18), Alcaston (4,21,19), Wistanstow (9,1), Strefford (4,3,47) and Cheney Longville (4,27,32). If this detachment could be eliminated, then "Culvestan" Hundred and Leintwardine Hundred would be territorially separate. Although in several cases these estates are preceded by others that were probably in "Culvestan" Hundred in 1086, six of them are directly below a Leintwardine hundred head and in the case of Alcaston, which is said to be in Leintwardine Hundred, a "Culvestan" hundred heading has appeared a few entries before at 4,21,15, so it is unlikely that the scribe has in these instances inserted Leintwardine Hundred for "Culvestan" Hundred. Another explanation needs to be sought for the interlacing of these hundreds.
	Also in the south of the county, 'Overs' Hundred was much smaller in geographical extent than all the other hundreds, except for the hundred of the city of Shrewsbury, and might seem to have been a severance from a larger unit.
	Sometimes hundredal boundaries cut through former land-units. Thus both Onslow and Preston Montford were divided between the hundreds of Baschurch and "Reweset", whose shared boundary they adjoined. The River Severn would make a natural boundary in this area between "Reweset" and Baschurch Hundreds, but Bicton and Rossall were also members of Baschurch Hundred, though lying south of the river. 
	In the case of the outlier Hopton (4,8,3), lying geographically in Hodnet Hundred, it was in fact a part of Stoke-on-Tern manor (4,8,7) and was assessed with it in Wrockwardine Hundred. In many counties members of multiple estates lay in several hundreds, but this is rare in Shropshire, although Milson in 'Overs' Hundred (5,9) was a berewick of Neen Sollars (5,8), itself in 'Conditre' Hundred. However, the Cheshire villages of Marbury, Norbury, Wirswell and Stoneley had all been dependencies of Whitchurch (4,13,1) before 1066: CHS 8,21;41. The first three lay adjacent to the county boundary, but this need not imply that they had once been in Shropshire. Rather it seems that the late shiring of Mercia cut through some well-established estates. 

Hundredal Manors and Lordship of the Hundred
Almost casually, the folios for the shire, like those for Worcestershire and Oxfordshire, provide important detail concerning the administration of the hundreds. In most other shires the hundreds of Domesday Book appear as isolated entities neither dependent on each other nor subject to an important individual nor appurtenant to a particular manor, although sometimes earlier evidence and often later material will show that hundreds were grouped together, in the possession of an individual or appurtenant to a manor: Cam, Liberties and Communities, pp. 64-106. Domesday Shropshire, however, indicates that nine of the manors held formerly by King Edward and in 1086 by Earl Roger in his demesne had between them ten hundreds attached to them and that these hundreds contributed to the value of the shire.

Royal Manors	Attached Hundreds	
4,1,1 Wrockwardine

4,1,2 Condover

4,1,3 Baschurch

4,1,4 Hodnet

4,1,5 Morville

4,1,6 'Corfham'

4,1,9 Alberbury

4,1,10 Chirbury

4,1,11 Maesbury
	Wrockwardine Hundred

Condover Hundred

Baschurch Hundred

'the hundred that belongs to the manor (Hodnet)

"Alnodestreu" Hundred

"Culvestan" Hundred and Patton Hundred

"Reweset" Hundred

Wittery Hundred

"Merset" Hundred	
 
Shrewsbury Hundred, also called 'the City Hundred', was no doubt attached to Shrewsbury in the same way. All these manors had been held by King Edward, and in his time his manor of Leintwardine (6,11) was probably head of the hundred of that name. King Edward did not seem to have an interest in "Rinlau" Hundred, nor in 'Overs' Hundred  nor in 'Conditre' Hundred, although it is possible that the Bishop of Hereford was lord of "Rinlau" from his manor of Lydbury North (2,1) and King Edward may well have held Burford (5,1) in 'Overs' Hundred before giving it to Richard Scrope. In the case of 'Conditre' Hundred, the moot-site lay in Stottesdon which later named the enlarged hundred. Stottesdon (4,1,30) had been held by Earl Edwin, and it is possible that he had received the revenues from the hundred. It is perhaps significant that the four hundreds - 'Conditre', Leintwardine, 'Overs' and "Rinlau" - not said to be attached to manors, all lay in the southern part of the shire and that in three of these hundreds are found the bulk of the manors that were held by lay tenants-in-chief who were not subject to Earl Roger. While Earl Roger had managed to retain the bulk of the hundreds of Shropshire and maintained their attachment to former royal vills, in the south of the county the arrangements had perhaps broken down and even the hundreds themselves possibly fragmented. 

The Earlier Pattern
There is enough evidence to suggest that the majority of hundreds in 1086 were attached to former royal estates. This is supplemented by evidence from other counties that when the hundreds were created in the tenth century, they were not made appurtenant to major estates, royal, comital or ecclesiastical, but created from them. Sometimes the estate formed a single hundred, sometimes more than one of these estates was combined to form a hundred, sometimes the territory of the estate was divided into more than one hundred. 
	In most of Shropshire the 1086 pattern is probably little different from the original arrangements. Minor changes may have been made; thus, it is likely that some adjustments both of size and dependence had been made by 1066. The unnatural and uncertain boundary between part of Hodnet and Wrockwardine Hundreds might suggest that transfers had been made between them. The sharing of the vills of Onslow (3f,7. 4,5,7) and Preston Montford (3g,10. 4,4,24) between Baschurch Hundred and "Reweset" Hundred may also not have been original.
	However, it is in the south of the county that it is more difficult to deduce the earlier or original arrangement. Here lay the hundreds that were not explicitly said to be attached to manors in 1066: "Rinlau", Leintwardine, 'Conditre' and 'Overs'. In three of them fell the majority of the lay lands not subject to Earl Roger. Leintwardine had been a royal manor T.R.E. (6,11) and it is possible that it had formerly controlled the territory of both "Rinlau" Hundred and Leintwardine Hundred. Ralph of Mortimer held Leintwardine manor in 1086, but neither as a holder in chief nor as a tenant of Earl Roger did he hold anything in "Rinlau" Hundred. The two hundreds may thus have been split apart on tenurial grounds. It is conceivable that the boundary between "Rinlau" Hundred and Leintwardine Hundred had been re-drawn to separate the Corbet lands from those of Ralph of Mortimer, and in consequence "Rinlau" gained some lands, thus severing Leintwardine. "Rinlau" was in 1086 already virtually a Marcher lordship held almost entirely by the Corbets (who by contrast held nothing in Leintwardine Hundred) and by Picot [of Sai]. It is possible, however, that "Rinlau" Hundred, whose territory is discrete, was and had been dependent on Lydbury North (2,1) perhaps since the time when it had been held by Edric the wild followed by the Bishops of Hereford. That does not undermine the suggestion that "Rinlau" Hundred and Leintwardine Hundred had once been a unit, for "Rinlau" could have been a grant out of Leintwardine Hundred for an important thane or a bishop.
	If an expansion of "Rinlau" Hundred is not the explanation of the division of Leintwardine Hundred, then the difficulty is understanding the interlacement of Leintwardine Hundred and 'Culvestan" Hundred. Domesday says that Patton Hundred and "Culvestan" Hundred were attached to 'Corfham' (4,1,6) in 1066. Ostensibly therefore, Patton Hundred and 'Culvestan" Hundred were divisions of the territory of the royal estate of 'Corfham'. However, Patton Hundred was named from Patton (4,8,4) held by Alwin, a free man, in 1066 and by Roger of Lacy in 1086. It is possible that Patton had been a royal or comital manor and that its hundred was only attached to 'Corfham' when the caput, Patton, was granted away or that it was an area in which Wenlock Abbey had special privileges (the predecessor of the Liberty of Wenlock) without that church in any sense 'holding' the hundred. Patton and "Culvestan" Hundreds are, however, territorially distinct (as were the related rural deaneries), with the exception that Ticklerton, possibly a recent addition to Patton Hundred, intruded to separate a portion of "Culvestan" Hundred from its main body. "Culvestan" Hundred was also interwoven with Leintwardine Hundred at this point.
	It is true that if Patton Hundred, dominated by estates of Wenlock Abbey, had grown to take in Ticklerton, "Culvestan" Hundred would have been cut into two parts, but that does not explain the relationship between "Culvestan" Hundred and Leintwardine Hundred. This interlacing of Leintwardine Hundred and "Culvestan" Hundred strongly suggests that they had once been a unit. Examples from Buckinghamshire and Hampshire show how certain groups of hundreds, each no doubt formerly a unit dependent on a single royal vill, were in 1086 distinct from other such groups. Within the group, however, the hundreds had been separated partly on tenurial lines with the result that some had detached parts lying within the territory of others; see Thorn, 'Hundreds and Wapentakes', Buckinghamshire Domesday, p. 40, and Thorn, 'Hundreds and Wapentakes', Hampshire Domesday, p. 36. It is possible that in the late tenth or early eleventh centuries the hundreds of "Rinlau, "Culvestan" and Leintwardine had depended on Leintwardine manor, or that 'Corfham' with its minster church at Diddlebury was the caput of this group of  hundreds, like other royal vills in other counties. In the latter case, for some unknown reason, Leintwardine Hundred will have become independent of 'Corfham', and perhaps in consequence, Patton Hundred was attached to 'Corfham' to maintain that manor's revenue, when the estate of Patton was granted away. It is conceivable that Leintwardine had not been a royal manor of great importance, but that it had become so as a consequence of warfare on the Welsh border. When Leintwardine Hundred and "Culvestan" Hundred were split apart, the separation would have had to be tenurial rather than geographical, which led to the interpenetration of the land of these hundreds. A further possibility, suggested by VCH Shropshire, x. p. 8, is that the division of Leintwardine Hundred into two or three parts was quite recent, and the work of Earl Roger. However the ownership of the estates in the northern part of Leintwardine Hundred gives no clue as to the reason, and Earl Roger was not the dominant lord in this area of Shropshire. 
	Perhaps the small hundred of 'Overs' had once been carved out of 'Conditre' Hundred, possibly for Osbern son of Richard (although he was not its only tenant) or his father, lords of Richards Castle nearby in Herefordshire. Likewise 'Conditre' Hundred itself may have been dependent on a royal manor: its moot was in Stottesdon which later named the hundred that was reorganized out of 'Conditre' Hundred. In 1086, however, it is more likely that it was at least dominated by Cleobury Mortimer (6,2) and was thus in the hands not of Earl Roger, but of Ralph of Mortimer, a tenant-in-chief.

Moot-Names and Moot-Sites
Many of the 1086 hundreds are named from the manors (formerly held by King Edward) to which they were attached. However, a few hundreds - "Alnodestreu", "Culvestan", "Merset", "Reweset" and Wittery - while being attached to manors are not named from them. Three of these have typical Old English hundred-names, while two - "Merset" and "Reweset"- are those of sub-tribes. The 'stone' and 'tree' names probably refer to the sites of pre-hundredal assemblies. While some of the hundreds were renamed after 1086, some of these names - Pimhill, Purslow, Munslow, Brimstree, 'Bradford' and possibly Oswestry - may be reversions to the names of primitive moot-sites, although not all of these 'new' hundreds had the same extents as the hundreds they replaced.
	In some cases the moot-site lay in the manor that named the hundred, in which case alternative names arose and were used for the same administrative unit. Where, however, a major estate was divided into more than one hundred, the use of names is more complicated. One of the hundreds would be named from the caput of the estate, while the others, if they continued to depend on that place and had not been granted out to other lords and attached to other manors, tended to be known by the names of traditional meeting places. 
	As to the first type, where manorial and moot-names coincide, "Alnodestreu" is the name of the hundred attached to Morville and Wittery of that attached to Chirbury and whose site lay within the manor. 'Conditre' lay in Stottesdon, a 1066 comital manor. While Morville was never the name of a hundred, both Chirbury and Stottesdon were after 1086. 'Corfham' lay in "Culvestan" Hundred and it is quite possible that the lost "Culvestan" is to be sought within the bounds of 'Corfham'. The location of the moot-sites of 'Overs' and '"Rinlau" will show whether they too were in important manors on which their hundreds might have depended and could have named them or whether these 'hundreds' represent the second category, that is they have been separated from others and from their parent manor and named from primitive sites that are not associated with manors.
	Elsewhere in the country there are examples where a hundred is known alternatively by it manorial and its moot-name. In the south-western counties, for which lists of hundred names survive that are contemporary with Domesday Book but independent of it, it appears that the essentially feudal nature of Domesday Book led to the replacement (often temporarily) of the Saxon moot-name (usually a prominent spot in open country) by the name of a royal vill which became the Norman centre of the hundred's administration: see, for example, DEV {Introduction: Hundreds}. Thus in Shropshire Baschurch, Hodnet, Shrewsbury, Wrockwardine, Condover, Patton and Leintwardine may well be such 'Norman' displacements of earlier names; equally the so-called 'later' hundred names may be a resurgence of the Saxon names.
	In the case of the Shropshire hundreds, those of Wrockwardine, Condover, Baschurch, Hodnet, Leintwardine and Shrewsbury were named from their dominant manors, but nothing is known of the location of their meeting-places. Patton Hundred, though attached to 'Corfham', was named from a manor on which it may once have depended.
	In the case of "Alnodestreu", the Hundred House Farm in Tasley (part of Morville in 1086) may preserve a memory of the moot-site (SO6992). The moot-site of 'Conditre' lay in Walton in Stottesdon Ancient Parish: Ancient Deeds, vi. no. C4536; VCH Shropshire, iii. p. 2. The site of "Culvestan" Hundred's moot is entirely unknown. "Merset" probably shares its first element with Maesbrook and Maesbury (4,1,11), the caput of the hundred. "Merset" is a tribal name, conjectured as being derived from Old English (ge)mer(e)setan, meaning 'settlers by the border', the border no doubt being that with Wales: Ekwall, Dictionary of English Placenames, under Maesbrook; Place-Names of Shropshire, i. pp. 192-93, under Maesbury. Nothing is known about the location of the place-name 'Overs' that named the hundred, except that it appears to derive from Old English ofer ('slope' or 'bank'). "Reweset" is derived from Welsh rhiw ('hill') and Old English saete ('settlers'). It may refer to a particular hill perhaps to the outcrop of breccia rock that forms a crescent-shaped ridge south west of Alberbury, itself the caput of the hundred in 1086; VCH Shropshire, viii. p. 178. Alternatively, rhiw may be used more generally of the high ground on the western edge of the hundred: Place-Names of Shropshire, ii. p. 1. 
	Nothing is known about "Rinlau", although a William de Renlowe, possibly named from this place, is found in 1327, but he was then living in Worfield in Brimstree Hundred, not in Purslow Hundred, the successor to "Rinlau" Hundred. Wittery is the name of a hamlet and a bridge in Chirbury Ancient Parish (SO2798). It is possibly derived from Old English witena and treo ('tree of the council'): Anderson, English Hundred Names, p. 156. The hundred was later named Chirbury.

Relation to Later Hundreds
The hundreds did not remain unchanged after 1086. The expansion of Shropshire into territory surveyed by Domesday as part of Staffordshire and Warwickshire seems to have provoked the reorganization of "Alnodestreu" Hundred and 'Conditre' Hundred into Brimstree Hundred and Stottesdon Hundred. Hodnet Hundred and Wrockwardine Hundred were amalgamated to form 'Bradford' Hundred, and Patton Hundred and "Culvestan" Hundred were united or reunited to make Munslow Hundred. Baschurch Hundred was renamed Pimhill Hundred. Several hundreds, however, such as Condover Hundred and 'Overs' Hundred, continued virtually unchanged, but the west and south-west of the county were transformed by the sequential creation of Welshries and Marcher lordships, semi-autonomous fiefs not subject to the king's justices, English common law or the hundred courts. These took away the whole of "Merset" Hundred and parts of the hundreds of "Reweset", Wittery and "Rinlau" (the rumps of which hundreds were named Ford Hundred, Chirbury Hundred and Purslow Hundred respectively) and led to the complete dissolution of Leintwardine Hundred. What survived of Shropshire was itself gradually changed by the extension of Shrewsbury Liberty and Wenlock Liberty and of the short-lived Liberty of Cleobury Mortimer. The evidence from the twelfth century to date these changes is scanty and it is not clear whether they were made piecemeal or in a single reorganization. The changes may well have been complete by the accession of Henry II (1154) and most of the new names are evidenced by 1203; the withdrawal of lands into the Marcher lordships took place during the thirteenth century. On the Liberty of Wenlock, see VCH Shropshire, x. pp. 187-95.
	In the sixteenth century, at the time of the dissolution of these Marcher lordships and of the Act of Union with Wales, most of these lands returned to Shropshire. Thus "Merset" Hundred was largely reconstituted as Oswestry Hundred. The western portion of "Rinlau" Hundred, which had been the Fitz Alan lordship of Clun, became Clun Hundred. Trewern and Bausley, however, remained outside the county when the Corbet lordships were returned to it, as did most of the lands dependent on Montgomery Castle: these went into Montgomeryshire.
	Most of the manors that in 1086 lay in the southern portion of Leintwardine Hundred belonged to Ralph of Mortimer and were gradually absorbed into his lordship based on Wigmore Castle (Herefordshire). On their return to the English shire-system, they were not restored to Shropshire, but put into Herefordshire, becoming Wigmore Hundred.

The later development of each hundred is as follows:
	"Merset" Hundred became the Hundred of Oswestry (perhaps a return to an earlier 'tree' name, although 'tree' may here mean or have been taken to mean 'cross'; see Place-Names of Shropshire, i. pp. 229-31), then was divided into a number of Marcher lordships (of which Oswestry was the most important) before returning to the county as Oswestry Hundred in 1535. Ruyton-Eleven-Towns was drawn into the Marcher lands from Baschurch Hundred and remained in Oswestry Hundred. The name Oswestry Hundred was in use sporadically in the thirteenth century.
	Baschurch Hundred was renamed Pimhill from a place (Pimhill or Pim Hill) in Preston Gubbals parish (SJ4821). It lost Ruyton-Eleven-Towns to Oswestry Hundred, Moreton Corbet to 'Bradford' Hundred and several of its southern manors to Shrewsbury Liberty. Pimhill first occurs as a hundred name in 1203: Anderson, English Hundred Names, p. 154.
	Hodnet Hundred and Wrockwardine Hundred combined to form the Hundred of 'Bradford' which was later divided into 'North Bradford' and 'South Bradford' Hundred, the division not exactly reproducing the Domesday boundary. 'Bradford' seems to have been named from a ford one mile south-west of High Ercall at SJ5816 (VCH Shropshire, xi. p. 93) where the road from Shrewsbury to High Ercall (the B5016) crossed the River Roden. It first occurs as a hundred name in 1203: Anderson, English Hundred Names, p. 153; VCH Shropshire, iii. p. 11, xi. p. 93. Parts of the old Wrockwardine Hundred were drawn into Shrewsbury Liberty. 
	"Reweset" Hundred was later called Ford Hundred when Ford replaced Alberbury as its chief manor. Ford was held by Earl Roger (4,1,16) in 1086, but had not been among King Edward's manors. The hundred name first occurs in 1203: Anderson, English Hundred Names, p. 156. The meeting-place was probably the ford (at SJ4113) from which the parish is named: VCH Shropshire, viii. pp. 178-81. Several manors were lost to Shrewsbury Liberty; Bausley (4,4,8) was drawn into Wales, and for a time Trewern manor (4,1,8) became the Welshry of Nether Gorddwr. 
	Shrewsbury Hundred was the nucleus of the later Shrewsbury Liberty which grew by absorbing lands belonging to the city's several churches.
	Wittery Hundred became Chirbury, named from the royal manor (4,1,10), but much was lost in the thirteenth century to the honours of Montgomery and Halcetor, to Upper Gorddwr and to Cause. Offa's Dyke was fixed in 1233 as the boundary between Chirbury Hundred and Montgomery lordship.
	Condover Hundred retained its name but was shorn of several manors. Buildwas (1,7) passed to 'Bradford' Hundred while other vills went to Shrewsbury Liberty, and to Purslow Hundred and Munslow Hundred. Even so, the core of the 1086 hundred remained intact: VCH Shropshire, viii. pp. 1-3.
	Patton Hundred lost Madeley (3c,4) and its outlying portion Beckbury (4,26,5) to Brimstree Hundred (mainly the successor to "Alnodestreu" Hundred), but the great majority of its manors went to Munslow Hundred where they joined most of the manors that had in 1086 been in "Culvestan" Hundred and a few from Leintwardine Hundred. In the course of time many of this hundred's manors went into the Liberty of Wenlock: VCH Shropshire, x. pp. 187-203. The settlement of Munslow, which is named from a lost mound or tumulus (Old English hlaw), lies south-east of Church Stretton (SO5287). The tumulus may have been the meeting-place. Munslow will have been a part of (Munslow) Aston in 1086: 4,3,45 Aston note. Munslow Hundred also gained Henley from 'Overs' Hundred. On Munslow Hundred, see VCH Shropshire, x. pp. 7-8.
	"Alnodestreu" Hundred was expanded by the addition of some manors from Staffordshire and most of its lands went to form Brimstree Hundred, named from Brimstree Hill, one mile south of Shifnal (SJ7505). It gained Madeley and Beckbury from Patton Hundred. Several of its southern manors, however, went into Stottesdon Hundred, joining those that were in 'Conditre' Hundred in 1086. The reorganization was probably necessitated by the transfer of a number of manors from Staffordshire, including four wrongly entered in Warwickshire; see {Introduction: County Boundary}.
	"Rinlau" Hundred , with the major loss of Clun lordship and the addition of a few manors from Leintwardine, became Purslow, named from the hamlet that lies half-a-mile to the west of Clunbury (SO3680), the hamlet itself being named from some lost mound or tumulus.
	Leintwardine Hundred was broken up after Domesday, its southern portion going into the lordship of Wigmore and ultimately into Herefordshire, its northern part being divided between Munslow Hundred and Purslow Hundred.
	"Culvestan" Hundred, with the deduction of Huntington (4,11,2-3), contributed a part of Munslow Hundred; most of the rest of Munslow came from the 1086 Hundred of Patton. 
	'Overs' Hundred retained its name and much of its area. It gained Neen Sollars (5,8) from 'Conditre' Hundred but already in 1086 contained Milson (5,9), an outlier of Neen Sollars; it lost Caynham, Coreley and Earls Ditton to Stottesdon Hundred.
	'Conditre' Hundred, with the addition of part of "Alnodestreu" and of some manors from Staffordshire, became Stottesdon Hundred named from an important Domesday manor (4,1,30) held by Earl Roger in 1086, though not formerly by King Edward.

(Further detailed information on the 1086 and later hundreds can be found from the lists and feudal surveys in the Rotuli Hundredorum, the Book of Fees, the Lay Subsidy Roll (1334), and Feudal Aids. Modern studies are the excellently detailed and systematic treatment of the names by Anderson, English Hundred Names, pp. 152-61, the note in VCH Shropshire, i. pp. 306-307 (see i. p. 283) and passing references in VCH Shropshire, iii. pp. 11, 33-45, also the introductory notes to each hundred in the 'topographical' volumes of VCH Shropshire (of which volumes viii, x, xi have so far been published) and Place-Names of Shropshire, iii. pp. 276-79. There is a detailed map of the hundreds in the Alecto county edition for Shropshire.)

Hundredal Courts
Domesday Book makes no reference to the work of the hundred jurors, although their help in compiling the returns that formed the basis of Domesday Book can be suspected in the handling of the measurement of woodland, which differs from hundred to hundred: {Introduction: The Domesday Format}. 

MANORIAL ORGANIZATION
In 1066 the dominant landholders were King Edward, Earl Edwin and Earl Morcar (Edwin was the Earl of Mercia). King Edward had held Wrockwardine, Condover, Baschurch, Hodnet, Morville, 'Corfham', Minsterley, Trewern, Alberbury, Chirbury, Maesbury and Whittington which became Earl Roger's lordship manors (4,1,1-12). In addition he had had "Wulfresforde" (4,28,6), Kinsham (5,4) and Leintwardine (6,11).
	Earl Edwin had held Emstrey (3b,3), Ford (4,1,16), Ellesmere (4,1,19), High Ercall (4,1,21), Wellington (4,1,22). Donington (4,1,25), Ditton Priors (4,1,26), Church Stretton (4,1,27), Stottesdon (4,1,30), Crudgington (4,6,5), Dodington (4,7,4), Chelmarsh (4,11,6), Wykey (4,18,3), Longford (4,19,1) and Puleston (4,19,3).
	Earl Morcar had held Great Ness (4,1,17), Tong (4,1,24), Cound (4,3,16), an unnamed ½ hide (4,4,6) which if joined to his holding at Worthen (4,4,20) would make a 15-hide unit, Shifnal (4,9,1), Caynham (4,11,4) and Sutton Maddock (4,23,16).
	Lesser holdings were those of Earl Leofric (Eyton-on-Severn: 3b,2; Minton and Whittingslow: 4,28,4); of his wife Countess Godiva (Chetton: 4,1,31; Sutton-upon-Tern: 4,7,1; Highley: 4,11,11; Chetwynd: 4,19,2 and Little Drayton: 4,19,8) and of Earl (later King) Harold (Whitchurch: 4,13,1).
	The number of holdings of Edric the wild are difficult to perceive when Domesday uses only the plain name Edric, as are the lands of important local thanes, Siward and his brother Aldred, among the Siwards and the Aldreds; see 4,1,14 Edric note and 4,27,32 Siward note.
	A significant number of these estates named hundreds or had hundreds attached to them and some of them seem to have been the homes of minster churches: {Introduction: Hundreds}and {Introduction: Ecclesiastical Organization}. Three places, Chirbury, Maesbury and Whittington, had paid half a night's revenue in the time of King Aethelred. This marks them out as very ancient royal manors. However, two of them were hidated by 1086 (the omission of the hidage of Chirbury seems accidental), and it is possible that other royal manors besides these had made the same contribution, but as they too were now taxed on their hides, no reference was made to the night's revenue.
	Some of these manors were also multiple estates consisting of a manorial caput with several outlying portions. Sometimes Domesday specifies the number of outliers attached to a manor. Thus six of the twelve manors held by King Edward in 1066 between them had fifty-three of these outliers (4,1,37 outliers note). Many other manors, whether the Domesday folios mention outlying parts or not, were large. Thus while Ford (4,1,16), held by Earl Edwin in 1066, was a 15-hide manor and stated to have 14 outliers, Lydham (4,1,14), held by Edric the wild, was also 15 hides but no outliers were mentioned for it. The Bishop of Hereford's manor of Lydbury North (2,1) in "Rinlau" Hundred contained no less than 53 hides, but only one member, held by 'a certain Frank and William the clerk', is specified. The members of all these large estates are identified where possible in the notes.
	Listed below are what appear to be the significant estates in Shropshire in 1086, that is, those of 5 hides or more in extent, those with outliers, those held by the earls or by Countess Godiva. On the grounds of hidage alone, some formerly royal estates would not qualify for inclusion, but it is probable in view of other details (number of ploughs, number of outliers) that they were in fact larger than their hidage suggests. Where an estate had been held as two manors in 1066, this is stated, as the individual hidages would in most cases be less than five hides.

Estate	T.R.E. holder	Hides/ Manors T.R.E.	Number of Outliers T.R.E.	
2,1 Lydbury North 
7,4 Stanton Lacy 
3c,2 Much Wenlock 
3c,9 Stoke St Milborough 
3d,6 Bromfield 
4,1,8 Trewern 
4,1,12 Whittington† 
4,1,14 Lydham  
4,1,16 Ford 
4,20,8 Clun 
4,4,20 Worthen 
4,1,22 Wellington 
4,1,23 Edgmond 
4,1,2 Condover 
4,1,5 Morville 
4,1,26 Ditton Priors
3g,3 Lilleshall 
3b,3 Emstrey 
4,1,30 Stottesdon 
3b,2 Eyton on Severn 
4,3,45 Munslow Aston 
1,8 Prees 
4,1,27 Church Stretton 
4,3,53 Myddle 
4,11,4 Caynham 
4,9,1 Shifnal 
4,13,1 Whitchurch 
3c,3 Ticklerton 
4,1,11 Maesbury † 
4,1,21 High Ercall 
4,3,32 Halston 
4,8,7 Stoke on Tern 
4,18,3 Wykey 
7,5 Stokesay 
5,1 Burford
4,1,7 Minsterley 
4,4,11 Yockleton 
4,19,1 Longford 
4,20,24 Clungunford 
5,5 Stanage 
4,3,1 Marchamley 
3d,1 Broughton 
4,1,1 Wrockwardine 
4,1,17 Great Ness 
4,1,18 Loppington 
4,1,28 Siefton 
4,1,29 Culmington 
4,1,32 Eardington 
4,3,24 Upton Magna 
4,3,33 Weston Rhyn
4,3,34 Moton and "Aitone" 
4,3,44 Cardington 
4,7,2 Tibberton 
4,8,5 Rushbury 
4,11,6 Chelmarsh 
4,17,3 Ryton 
4,20,21 "Chinbaldescote" 
4,21,14 Uffington 
4,27,25 Church Stoke 
5,4  Kinsham 
6,21 Bicton 
8,1 Knighton 
8,2 Norton 
4,1,19 Ellesmere 
4,3,16 Cound 
6,11 Leintwardine 
4,1,6 'Corfham' 
4,7,1 Sutton-upon-Tern 
4,22,1 Chelmick 
4,23,16 Sutton Maddock 
4,28,4 Minton and Whittingslow
4,1,3 Baschurch 
4,1,24 Tong 
4,1,25 Donington 
4,11,11 Highley 
4,19,2 Chetwynd 
4,3,39 Wotton 
4,28,6 "Wulfresforde" 
4,1,4 Hodnet 
4,6,5 Crudgington 
4,1,9 Alberbury 
4,1,31 Chetton   
4,7,4 Dodington 
4,19,3 Puleston 
4,19,8 Little Drayton 
4,4,6  ½ hide (unidentified)
4,1,10 Chirbury†  (hides omitted)
5,8 Neen Sollars (never hidated)	Bishop of Hereford
Siward
St Milburga's
St Milburga's
St Mary's, Bromfield
King Edward
King Edward
Edric the wild
Earl Edwin
Edric (the wild?)
Earl Morcar
Earl Edwin
Young Leofwin 
King Edward
King Edward
Earl Edwin
St Alkmund's
Earl Edwin
Earl Edwin
Earl Leofric
Almund
King Edward
Earl Edwin
Siward
Earl Morcar
Earl Morcar
Earl Harold
St Milburga's
King Edward
Earl Edwin
Edric (the wild?)
Edmund
Earl Edwin
Aldred
Richard (Scrope)
King Edward
Edric (liber homo)
Earl Edwin
Gunnvarth
(not given)
Siward and Aelfric
St Mary's, Shrewsbury
King Edward
Earl Morcar
Edric the wild
Edric (the wild?)
Edric (the wild?)
St Milburga's
Siward
Siward
Siward
Austin and another Austin
Wulfgar
Alwin (liber homo)
Earl Edwin
Wivar and Brictwold
St Mary's, Bromfield
Genust and Aelfeva
Siward (liber homo)
King Edward
Saxi
Leoffled
Leoffled
Earl Edwin
Earl Morcar
King Edward
King Edward
Countess Godiva
Edric
Earl Morcar
Earl Leofric
King Edward
Earl Morcar
Earl Edwin
Countess Godiva
Countess Godiva
Edric
King Edward
King Edward
Earl Edwin
King Edward
Countess Godiva
Earl Edwin
Earl Edwin
Countess Godiva
Earl Morcar
King Edward
Siward
	53 hides
20 ½ hides
20 hides
20 hides
20 hides
20 hides
18 hides
15 hides
15 hides
15 hides
14 ½ hides
14 hides
14 hides
13 hides 
12 hides
12 hides
10 hides
9 hides
9 hides
8 ½ hides
8 ½ hides
8 hides
8 hides
8 hides
8 hides
7 ½ hides
7 ½ hides
7 hides
7 hides
7 hides
7 hides
7 hides
7 hides
7 hides
6 ½ hides
6 hides
6 hides
6 hides
6 hides
6 hides
5 ½ hides     2M
5 hides
5 hides
5 hides
5 hides
5 hides
5 hides
5 hides
5 hides
5 hides
5 hides
5 hides         2M
5 hides
5 hides
5 hides
5 hides         2M
5 hides 
5 hides         2M
5 hides
5 hides
5 hides
5 hides
5 hides
4 ½ hides
4 ½ hides
4 hides 1virgate
4 hides
4 hides
4 hides
4 hides
4 hides
3 ½ hides
3 hides
3 hides
3 hides
3 hides
2 hides
2 hides
1 ½ hides
1 ½ hides
1 hide
1 hide
1 hide
1 hide
1 hide
½  hide
--
--
	1 (member)
--
--
--
--
--
8 ½ outliers
--
14 outliers
--
--
5 outliers
6 outliers
10 outliers
18 outliers
4 outliers
--
--
7 outliers
--
--
--
4 outliers
--
--
--
--
--
5 outliers
5 outliers
3 outliers
--
3 outliers
--
--
--
--
4
--
--
--
--
7 ½ outliers
4 outliers
--
--
3 outliers
--
--
--
--
--
--
--
--
--
--
--
--
--
--
--
--
--
--
--
4 outliers
--
1 outlier
--
--
--
--
--
--
--
2 outliers
--
--
--
--
--
--
--
--
--
--
1 outlier (at Milson: 5,9)

† Chirbury, Maesbury and Whittington had paid half a night's revenue in the time of King Aethelred.

	There had probably once been a simpler pattern, consisting of a dozen or more multiple estates held by the kings of Mercia and their ealdormen of which the lands of King Edward and of the earls preserve a memory in Domesday Book. The estates of these ealdormen themselves may have originated in grants of the members of royal estates. To be included here is the foundation grant to Wenlock Priory, which itself may have been one of these royal multiple estates (SHR 3c St Milburga's note). Progressively, these estates will have lost members by division among heirs on the death of the holder, by grants to loyal ministers or supporters or to churches. Sometimes Domesday appears to record what may be former linkages: Minton and Whittingslow (4,28,4) are said to be 'included in' Church Stretton (4,1,27); Hopton (4,8,3) had been attached to Stoke on Tern (4,8,7) and one of Baveney's two virgates (4,11,13) 'lay in' Cleobury Mortimer (6,2). But manors can be made as well as unmade: Mawsley (6,3) was joined to Cleobury Mortimer (6,2) by "Turstin" of Wigmore and Little Wytheford (4,8,8) was only 'assessed in the revenue' of Stoke on Tern (4,8,7) after 1066.

'Missing' Parishes
Domesday does not name every place that lay in Shropshire in 1086: its survey units were estates, often very large. Thus some tracts of country, sometimes corresponding to entire later parishes, are tacitly included in the statistics of an adjacent Domesday manor. Later evidence suggests that the following Ancient Parishes (AP), chapelries (Chap.) and townships (Tp.) all of which became Civil Parishes are silently included in the details of named Domesday estates:

PARISH/ ESTATE (with NGR)	DB MANOR	
Ashford Bowdler (Chap.) SO5170
Astley Abbots (Chap.) SO7096
Chetwynd Aston (Tp.) SJ7417
Church Aston (Chap.) SJ7157
Clive (Chap.) SJ5124
Cockshutt (Chap.) SJ4329
Barrow (AP) SO6599
Benthall (AP) SJ6602
Bettws y Crwyn (Chap.) SO2084
Billingsley (Chap.) SO7085
Bishops Castle (AP) S03288
Bolas Magna (AP) SJ6421
Boningale (Chap.) SJ8102
Boraston (Chap.) SO6170
Bridgnorth St Leonard (AP)  SO7193
Bridgnorth St Mary Magdalen (AP) SO7193
Broseley (AP) SJ6701
Diddlebury (AP) SO5085
Dowles (AP) SO7776
Dudleston (Chap. and Tp.) SJ3438
Eaton under Heywood (AP) SO5090
Greete (AP) SO5770
Habberley (AP) SJ3903
Halford (Chap.) SO4383
Heath (Chap. and Tp.) SO5585
Hope Bagot (AP) SO5874
Hopton Cangeford (Chap.) SO5480
Hughley (AP) SO5698
Knockin (AP) SJ3322
Linley (Chap.) SO6898
Llanyblodwel (AP) SJ2422
Llanymynech (AP) SJ2620
Loughton (Chap.) SO6183
Ludlow (AP) SO5174
Mainstone (Chap.) SJ2787
Monkhopton (Chap.) SO6293
More (AP) SO3491
Mucklewick (Tp.) SO3397 
Munslow (AP) SO5288
Nash (Chap.) SO6071
Newport (AP) SJ7419
Newtown (Chap.) SJ4831
Norbury (Chap.) SO3692
Priorslee (Tp.) SJ7109
Selattyn (AP) SJ2633
Shelve (AP) SO3399
Silvington (AP) SO6279
Stirchley (AP) SJ6906
Stowe (AP) SO3173
Sychtyn† (Tp.) c. SJ2326
Tasley (AP) SO6994
Thonglands (AP) SO5489
Tilstock (Chap.) SJ5437
Cold Weston (AP) SO5583
Whitton (Chap.) SO5772
Wombridge (AP) SJ6911
	Bromfield (3d,6). See HEF 24,12
Morville (4,1,5)
Edgmond (4,1,23)
Edgmond (4,1,23)
Broughton (3d,1)
Ellesmere (4,1,19)
Much Wenlock (3c,2)
Much Wenlock (3c,2)
Clun (4,20,8)
Morville (4,1,5)
Lydbury North (2,1)
Isombridge (4,11,18)
Stockton (4,8,15 Higford note)
Burford (5,1)
Morville (4,1,5)
Morville (4,1,5)
Much Wenlock (3c,2)
'Corfham' (4,1,6)
Stottesdon (4,1,30)
Ellesmere (4,1,21)
Ticklerton (3c,3)
Burford (5,1)
Worthen (4,4,20)
Bromfield (3d,6)
Stoke St Milborough (3c,9)
Caynham (4,11,4)
Stanton Lacy (7,4)
Unnamed land (3c,14)
Osbaston and Kynaston (4,3,43)
Broseley (part of Much Wenlock 3c,2)
Maesbury? (4,1,11)
Maesbury? (4,1,11)
Chetton (4,1,31) or Wheathill (4,8,16)
Stanton Lacy (7,4)
Clun (4,20,8) or Montgomery (4,1,35)
Much Wenlock (3c,2)
Lydham (4,1,14)
Hyssington  (Montgomery 4,1,35)
Munslow Aston (4,3,45)
Burford (5,1)
Edgmond (4,1,23)
Wem (4,14,4)
Lydbury (2,1)
Shifnal (4,9,1)
Whittington? (4,1,12)
Worthen (4,4,20)
Unnamed land (3a,1)
Shifnal (4,9,1)
Lurkenhope? (4,20,23)
Maesbury? (4,1,11)
Morville (4,1,5)
Tugford (4,3,8)
Whitchurch (4,13,1)
Stanton Lacy? (7,4)
Burford (5,1)
Hadley (4,3,27)

†  Sychtyn was a township of Llansilin Ancient Parish, the bulk of which was in Denbeighshire from 1536. 

	Other townships and chapelries that did not develop into Ancient or Civil Parishes are included in individual notes.
	The Ancient Parish of Battlefield was centred on a Collegiate church founded by the rector of Albright Hussey (4,3,51;57) to commemorate the battle of Shrewsbury (1403). This church replaced the chapel of Albright Hussey. The lands for this 'new' Ancient Parish were probably drawn from Albrighton chapelry and the Ancient Parish of Shrewsbury St Mary. See Place-Names of Shropshire, i. p. 32.

ECCLESIASTICAL ORGANIZATION
The various dioceses provided for the peoples who formed Mercia were established long before the Mercian shires were laid out. A bishop's seat was established at Leicester in 679, only withdrawing to Dorchester-on-Thames (Oxfordshire) in the late ninth century under pressure from the Danish marauding. The see of Hereford was created in 669, that of Worcester in 680 and Ceadda (St Chad) was appointed in 664 as bishop of the Mercians and the Lindisfari, subsequently fixing his seat at Lichfield. The see moved to Chester in 1075.
	Shropshire originated from the allotting of a certain number of hides for the upkeep of the defences of Shrewsbury: {Introduction: History}. This arrangement drew in lands of two tribes that were largely in separate dioceses. The Wreocensaete (the Wrekin-Dwellers) inhabited land north and east of the River Severn and lay in Lichfield diocese, while the Magonsaete, dwelling south and west of the Severn were in the diocese of Hereford. The boundary between these dioceses was mainly the river itself. However, the boundary deviated west of the river to exclude Astley Abbots from Hereford diocese and north of it to include Madeley and Little Wenlock which belonged to the church of Much Wenlock (3c,2) which lay south of the river in Hereford diocese. Buildwas was also included in this loop. Thereafter, the boundary dipped south of the River Severn in a great arc, passing to the east of Leighton, and Sheinton and south of Harley, Longnor, Leebotwood and Smethcott, then west of Stapleton, Condover and Berrington, including all these places and those north of them in Lichfield diocese, but excluding Sutton and Meole Brace which were in the diocese of Hereford. Shrewsbury itself seems to have contained important minster churches for both peoples: St Mary's perhaps for the Magonsaete and St Chad's possibly for the Wreocensaete (SHR 3d St Mary's note and SHR 3f St Chad's note).
	In 1086, apart from these two, there were other landholding churches in Shrewsbury: St Michael's, St Alkmund's and St Juliana's (SHR 3e, SHR 3g, SHR 3h). There was also a church dedicated to St Peter (SHR 3b) that Earl Roger was in the process of turning into a major Benedictine abbey, by construction and by the gift of dependant churches and land. There were two other important churches: St Milburga's of Wenlock (SHR 3c) which Earl Roger had turned into a Cluniac priory and made dependent on the Abbey of La Charité-sur-Loire, and St Mary's of Bromfield (SHR 3d, its lands wrongly included with those of St Mary's of Shrewsbury), which was a Saxon college of secular canons with an extensive parish, though it had fallen on straitened times. There is the possibility that the nova domus ('new house') that the earl was building at Quatford was also for a religious purpose (4,1,32 Quatford note).
	In the eleventh century, the arrangements for the care of souls and for the charitable functions of churches were in transition. The network of minster churches with their collegiate communities of priests who went out into the countryside to preach and succour were being replaced by local churches that were constructed in manors and vills usually by the manorial lord. These would form a dense pattern of local churches and chapels of ease within their Ancient Parishes that were still in place in the nineteenth century.
	Although there appear to have been no instructions to the shire authorities to provide information about churches for the Domesday Enquiry (they are absent from the list of questions that prefaces the Inquisitio Eliensis), Domesday nonetheless contains much. From its pages, a particular group of churches can be identified as superior: by the presence of more than one priest, of attached land or of a named dedication. If the landholding churches of Shrewsbury and Wenlock Priory are omitted, churches that fall into this category are: Bromfield (3d,6-7) with 20 hides (reduced to 10 hides by 1086) and 12 canons (in 1066); Burford (5,1) with 2 priests and a church; perhaps Chirbury (4,1,10) with 2 churches and a priest; Condover (4,1,2) with a church (St Andrew's) and a priest and ½ hide in Berrington (4,3,14; see 4,3,14 St Andrew's note); Ellesmere (4,1,19) with two priests; Lydbury North (2,1) with a church and priests and land; Morville (4,1,5) with a church dedicated to St Gregory as well as 8 canons and 8 hides before 1066; Stanton Lacy (7,4) with a church, 1½ hides and 2 priests; Westbury (4,4,15) with 2 priests; and Wroxeter (4,3,26) with 4 priests and a church.
	Unusually detailed though this information is by the normal standards of Domesday Book, this number of churches would not be enough to minister to the faithful in a county as large and, in the south, as corrugated as Shropshire. 
	Especial interest attaches to those churches that Earl Roger gave to his new Abbey of St Peter in Shrewsbury (SHR 3b), itself the rebuilding of a small minster church. Unfortunately the Domesday formulae are ambiguous: of Baschurch (4,1,3) referring to the situation in 1086, Domesday says: 'St Peter's Church [of Shrewsbury] holds 2 ½ hides of this manor and the village church from the earl'. It is not immediately clear whether Earl Roger has made a double gift to St Peter's of a church and land or whether the 2 ½ hides had long belonged to the church of Baschurch. Fortunately in the case of Morville (4,1,5), Domesday not only says: 'St Peter's Church holds this church from the earl with 5 hides of land' but it has already said that the church of Morville (St Gregory's) had held 8 hides T.R.E.(of which 5 hides were subsequently given by Earl Roger to St Peter's of Shrewsbury).
	If this interpretation (that the churches already held some land) is adopted for other churches given by Earl Roger to St Peter's, then the list of possible minster churches can be expanded by the addition of Baschurch (4,1,3), Wrockwardine (4,1,1), a church and 1 hide; 'Corfham' (4,1,6), a church (which lay at Diddlebury) and 1 hide; Stottesdon (4,1,30), a church and 2 ½ hides; Great Ness (4,1,17), a church and 1 virgate. Earl Roger also gave the church of Hodnet (4,1,4) but no land is said to have been attached. 
	What is significant about these gifts of Earl Roger's is not that they come from his lordship lands (4,1) but that the churches were mostly on estates which had been held by King Edward that either named hundreds or had hundreds attached to them:{Introduction: Hundreds}. There is evidence from many parts of the country that minster churches were often associated with ancient and important royal manors, the hypothesis being that the manor administered its territory and the church looked after the spiritual needs of its people within the same boundaries. Hundreds, when created in the mid-tenth century, often corresponded to the ancient lands of these royal manors, sometimes embracing the lands of more than one royal estate, sometimes being co-terminous with the boundaries of one; sometimes more than one hundred arose from the lands of a single manor.
	Of the churches with land mentioned above as given by Earl Roger not all had been held by King Edward: Stottesdon had been held by Earl Edwin and Great Ness by Earl Morcar. However, these may have been held by these men by virtue of their offices and originally been crown land, though they may have been parts of a major estate in origin rather than estates themselves.
	 According to the Shrewsbury Cartulary (for example, Rees, nos. 2, 34, 35, pp. 5, 30, 32) Earl Roger gave other churches to St Peter's: those of Edgmond (4,1,23) held by Young Leofwin T.R.E.; Tong (4,1,24) held by Earl Morcar; and [High] Ercall, Wellington and Donington (4,1,21;22;25) all held by Earl Edwin. In Domesday Book neither the gifts nor the existence of these churches is mentioned. It is possible that Earl Roger initially gave only the most important churches, or that the compilers of the data for the Domesday Enquiry omitted reference to the others. Furthermore, these gifts may have taken place after 1086.
	The Domesday record of churches is notoriously deficient, but in the case of Shropshire there seems to be enough evidence within its pages to connect a number of possible minster churches with the principal manors (often formerly held by King Edward). Other evidence from outside Domesday can identify further possible minsters. Among them may be Prees (1,8). There was a priest there in 1086, but the manor was waste for a period between 1066 and 1086; nonetheless it may have been a Saxon collegiate foundation: Knowles and Hadcock, Medieval Religious Houses, p. 435. Alberbury (4,1,9) the principal manor of "Reweset" Hundred but where Domesday records neither priest nor church, was likewise a Saxon collegiate foundation: Knowles and Hadcock, Medieval Religious Houses, pp. 413, 419. In the same hundred, there had also been a college of secular priests at Pontesbury (4,4,12) which Domesday passes over in silence: Knowles and Hadcock, Medieval Religious Houses, pp. 417, 435. Patton (4,8,4) named a hundred, but shared its caput with "Culvestan" Hundred; only a priest is mentioned at Patton. At Maesbury (4,1,11), another Edwardian manor with a hundred attached, there was a priest and a church. The church actually lay at Oswestry and was possibly more important than it seems: Knowles and Hadcock, Medieval Religious Houses, p. 417, 434. At Ellesmere (4,1,19) two priests are listed in Domesday. This in itself may be the sign that there was a superior church here, but there is independent confirmation: Knowles and Hadcock, Medieval Religious Houses, p. 424. There was a Saxon collegiate church at Shifnal (4,9,1), but Domesday mentions neither church nor priest: Knowles and Hadcock, Medieval Religious Houses, pp. 418, 438; Croom, 'Fragmentation of the Minster Parochiae', p. 72.
	On the basis of the above information, an attempt can be made to relate important churches to the manors that named or dominated hundreds. At the same time other suspected minster or superior churches are included (but within brackets). The result is striking:

HUNDRED	PRINCIPAL MANOR and T.R.E. HOLDER	SUPERIOR CHURCH(ES)	
"Alnodestreu"	4,1,5  Morville (King Edward)	St Gregory's, Morville	
 Baschurch	4,1,3  Baschurch (King Edward)	Baschurch
(4,9,1 Shifnal)
(4,1,17 Great Ness)
(4,1,19 Ellesmere)	
 Condover	4,1,2  Condover (King Edward)	St Andrew's, Condover	
'Conditre'	4,1,30 Stottesdon (Earl Edwin)	Stottesdon	
"Culvestan"	4,1,6 'Corfham' (King Edward)	Diddlebury
(3d,6 Bromfield)
(7,4 Stanton Lacy)	
 Hodnet	4,1,4 Hodnet (King Edward)	? Hodnet
(1,8 Prees)	
 Leintwardine	4,20,20. 6,11 Leintwardine (not stated; King Edward)	?
(5,4 Kinsham?)	
"Merset"	4,1,11 Maesbury (King Edward)	Oswestry	
'Overs'	? 5,1 Burford  (Richard Scrope)	Burford	
 Patton	4,1,6 'Corfham' (King Edward)
4,8,4 Patton (Alwin, a free man)	Diddlebury
Stanton Long	
"Reweset"	4,1,9 Alberbury (King Edward)	Alberbury
(4,4,12 Pontesbury)
(4,4,15 Westbury)	
"Rinlau"	2,1 Lydbury North (Bishop of Hereford)	Lydbury (North)	
 Wittery	4,1,10 Chirbury (King Edward)	Chirbury	
 Wrockwardine	4,1,1 Wrockwardine (King Edward)
	Wrockwardine
(4,3,26 Wroxeter)	

The basic pattern seems clear: the most important churches of Shropshire (the minsters) are associated with the major estates, royal or comital, which were the capita of their hundreds. Where more than one church was present in a hundred, there may have been an imperceptible hierarchy, and some of them may have been more recent in foundation or initially intended for a different purpose. In the case of the manor of 'Corfham' two hundreds were attached, "Culvestan" and Patton. The reason for this division is not clear, though it is possible that Patton was once an area of special privilege for Wenlock church: {Introduction: Hundreds}. If both hundreds represent the former territory of the royal manor of 'Corfham' perhaps only one minster needs to be sought.
	The absence of any obvious centrally-situated minster church for Leintwardine Hundred is arresting. Because of Leintwardine Hundred's interlacement on the ground with "Culvestan" Hundred it is possible that all three hundreds ("Culvestan", Patton and Leintwardine) or possibly four (if "Rinlau" is included), had the same caput (presumably 'Corfham') and that a single minster (perhaps Diddlebury) served them all. On the other hand Leintwardine had been held by King Edward and was clearly an important manor (4,20,20. 6,11; see also C10). Had the majority of Shropshire not been given to Earl Roger, Leintwardine would have its place with Baschurch, Condover, Morville etc. as ancient demesne manors of the Crown. Whilst there is a reference to a church it may be that its land and its priests have been omitted.

After 1086 a number of religious houses were established in Shropshire. A Cistercian Abbey was founded at Buildwas in 1135 by Roger de Clinton, Bishop of Chester; see 1,7 Buildwas note; Eyton, Antiquities of Shropshire, vi. p. 317; VCH Shropshire, ii. p. 50; Knowles and Hadcock, Medieval Religious Houses, pp. 112, 116. Haughmond Abbey was established on assarted land in the royal forest near Upton Magna (4,3,24). The earliest community here probably existed early in the twelfth century, but it was William Fitz Alan who gave it important early endowments between 1130 and 1138. It was an Augustinian priory, then an abbey; see Eyton, Antiquities of Shropshire, vii. p. 282; VCH Shropshire, ii. p. 62; the Haughmond Cartulary (Rees, p. 5); Knowles and Hadcock, Medieval Religious Houses, pp. 140, 159. An Augustinian abbey was founded at Lilleshall before 1148, endowed with lands of St Alkmund's Church in Shrewsbury; see 3g,3 Lilleshall note; Knowles and Hadcock, Medieval Religious Houses, pp. 141, 164. William and Seburga of Hadley founded the Augustinian priory of Wombridge between 1130 and 1135 in a clearing in Hadley wood; see 4,3,27 Hadley note; Eyton, Antiquities of Shropshire, vii. p. 363; VCH Shropshire, ii. p. 80, xi. p. 283; Knowles and Hadcock, Medieval Religious Houses, pp. 144, 179. Another Augustinian priory was founded in the twelfth century at Snead by Robert de Bulers, lord of Montgomery. It moved to Chirbury in 1195: Knowles and Hadcock, Medieval Religious Houses, pp. 139, 143, 154, 174. An Augustinian  priory cell was in existence before 1200 at Ratlinghope and had become a cell of Wigmore Abbey (Herefordshire) by 1209: Knowles and Hadcock, Medieval Religious Houses, pp. 143, 171. 
	Two small convents, both in the forest of Brewood (4,25,6 woodland note), should also be mentioned: one in Staffordshire was founded c. l189 for Benedictine (Black) nuns, and the other was established c. l199 in Shropshire for Augustinian canonesses; see Eyton, Antiquities of Shropshire, ii. p. 185; Knowles and Hadcock, Medieval Religious Houses, pp. 210, 227.

(Information about these churches and the manors in which they lay will be found in the notes. For the cartularies of these abbeys, see Davis, Medieval Cartularies; those for Shrewsbury Abbey, Haughmond Abbey and Lilleshall Abbey are published. On minster churches in general, see Blair, 'Secular Minster Churches'. The minster churches of south-eastern Shropshire have been studied by Croom, 'Fragmentation of the Minster Parochiae'. She proposes that in that area of Shropshire, the churches of Much Wenlock, Morville, Stottesdon, Shifnal and possibly Cleobury Mortimer were minsters.)

FOREST
Woodland is generally surveyed as part of a manor's resources, but beyond and between manors lay tracts of country often wooded or merely unfilled that were called foresta (a Medieval Latin word from Classical Latin foris 'outside') meaning land outside the manor or vill. The king regarded foresta as his preserve for hunting and in the course of time 'forest' in the sense of the king's right to the chase could intrude on established manors or even reduce or depopulate them.
	In other counties (for example, Herefordshire; see HEF{Introduction: Forest}), there is passing mention of forest, often when woodland has been removed from a manor and put into the foresta regis. Although the royal hunt is implied in C3 with its mention of 'stalling game' and a 'park', and there are no less than 36 hedged enclosures (or 'hays') mentioned, there is no reference to foresta in Domesday Shropshire. Yet several 'forests' probably existed in 1086 as they certainly did in the Middle Ages: those of Brewood, of Morf, of Shirlett, of Kinver, Wyre, of Clee, of the Wrekin (also known as Mount Gilbert) as well as the Long Forest around Wenlock Edge; see Eyton, Antiquities of Shropshire, ii. p. 185, iii. pp. 212, 295, iv. p. 276, v. p. 196, vi. p. 335, ix. p. 143; VCH Shropshire, i. pp. 483-97.

THE DOMESDAY FORMAT
Circuit
On the basis of its content, arrangement and the ruling pattern used in it, Shropshire is normally included in circuit V with Gloucestershire, Worcestershire, Herefordshire and Cheshire. There is some evidence that it was the fourth circuit to be written up: it was definitely written up after circuits VI, III and I, but the order of inscription of the remaining three circuits (II, IV and V) is not certain. In common with the rest of circuit V, Shropshire has no indication whether a place was a manor, outlier or Jurisdiction, information that the main scribe of Great Domesday had included in the first two circuits to be written up. Hundredal rubrication, which was abandoned in circuit II and is often only sporadically included in circuit IV, is still quite full in circuit V, especially in Shropshire, as in the three previously-written circuits. There is also a little evidence from the ruling pattern used in the first Gloucestershire quire to suggest that circuit V was written fourth. On the order of inscription, see Thorn and Thorn, 'The Writing of Great Domesday Book', and Thorn, Thorn and Gullick, The Scribal History of Great Domesday Book (forthcoming). 

Writing and Correction
Shropshire, together with the rest of circuit V, except for the first Gloucestershire quire, was frame-ruled: that is, only two horizontal lines were 'ruled' with a hard point at the top and bottom with four vertical lines to mark out the writing space in the two columns. However, in Shropshire 16 horizontal lines were ruled on folio 252a, beginning three-quarters of the way down the column, on the first of which was written the first line of C14; there are two blank lines before the Landholders' List and two after. This extra ruling was almost certainly done to accommodate this list, as was the case with Devon. Throughout Shropshire the number of lines written per column varies from about 55 to 60 and often the two columns on one side of a folio have different numbers of lines. 
	There is evidence, both from the quire make-up and from the relatively high level of correction and addition in this circuit, that the 'circuit volume', which was probably the source used by the main scribe of Great Domesday, was either poorly-arranged or incomplete. The Shropshire section in it, however, does not seem to have caused him quite so many problems as the Cheshire one, for example, but the uncertainty about the amount and nature of the material for Cheshire undoubtedly affected his ability to judge accurately how many folios he would need for Shropshire. 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. For the first Shropshire quire the scribe had used four bifolia (8 folios), the norm for Great Domesday, but the second quire (which also contained the first part of Cheshire) and the quire containing the rest of Cheshire were made up of three bifolia each. When the decision was made to begin a second quire for Shropshire (to contain chapters 5-9; see L5 Osbern note) the scribe had probably not been able to work out exactly how much space he would need for Cheshire (perhaps because not all the material was included in the circuit volume or he had yet to decide how sharply to abbreviate some of the unusual material). If he had been able to judge, he would almost certainly have added a half-sheet (one folio) to the first Shropshire quire, thereby keeping it to the ideal of one quire per county. Instead he begun a second quire, perhaps not yet assembled with three bifolia. If he had not left one and a half folios blank after the end of Shropshire, but had begun Cheshire on folio 262a and had used a quire of five bifolia, which, though rare in Great Domesday, was what he used for Herefordshire in this circuit, he could have fitted all of Cheshire into this quire. Instead he had to begin another quire (again of three bifolia) for the second half of Cheshire and the section entitled 'Between the Ribble and the Mersey' (which later formed the southern part of Lancashire), but was then left with one and three-quarters folios blank at its end.
	However, within the text of Domesday Shropshire there are many indications that suggest that the information included in the circuit volume was defective. The main scribe of Great Domesday seems to have been aware of the omission of the taxability of many estates and of some and often all of the resources (discussed in {Introduction: Content and Layout}) because of the spaces he left for their later inclusion, if details of them were discovered. Unfortunately the abrupt cessation of work on the Domesday project meant that few of these spaces were filled. Ninety or so entries lack any reference to the plough estimate (either in the form 'Land for n ploughs' or as 'n ploughs would be possible': 1,5 land note), but this information is often missing in parts of other counties and circuits. He also seems to have had some problems with the order of entering material within an entry: there are misplacements of the1086 subtenant, the T.R.E. holder and how he held the land (see further below), the plough estimate and how many ploughs would be possible, and some resources. These misplacements may, of course, have been caused by the speed at which the scribe appears to have been working (there is evidence of haste in the formation of characters in most of the Shropshire text) or by any rearrangement in the order of details between the circuit volume and Great Domesday, but a confused layout of the material in the circuit volume, as well as difficulty in reading some of it, cannot be ruled out. The number of corrections and additions that were made (discussed below) support this view. 
	There is no evidence as to the order in which the counties in circuit V were written (other than that Cheshire succeeded Shropshire, and Worcestershire succeeded Gloucestershire, because of the sharing of quires), but if Gloucestershire and Worcestershire were written up before Shropshire, the fact that the scribe had already used part of a second quire for Gloucestershire (when again he could have fitted all of its material onto a half-sheet attached to the first quire) and had managed to fit all of Worcestershire into it, may have influenced him in beginning a second quire for Shropshire. 
	There are a couple of indications in Shropshire as to the source of the manorial information. Firstly, differing measures of woodland (whether by leagues used as a square measure or by the number of pigs that might be fattened) seem to derive from particular hundred juries. Leaving aside Shrewsbury Hundred (in which no woodland is detailed) and the lands held by Earl Roger in lordship, in four hundreds ("Culvestan", Leintwardine, "Merset" and Wrockwardine) measurement of woodland is done by area, while in the other hundreds it is assessed in terms of pigs: Lewis, 'Introduction', Shropshire Domesday, p. 10. Secondly, there are more exact definitions of the population, and the words used for them are sometimes different, in the lands held by Roger of Lacy himself, whether as a tenant-in-chief (SHR 7) or as a tenant of Earl Roger (4,8) or of the Bishop of Hereford (2,2). Thus half-villagers only occur in 2,2 and 7,4, a miller, beekeeper and female cottagers only in 7,5, while the terms radchen[istres] ('riding men') and cozet ('Cottagers') are used only in the Lacy holdings, the first probably identical with radmans used elsewhere in Shropshire. This suggests that Roger or his agents were responsible for supplying these details. There is a similar striving for precision in the Lacy fief in Herefordshire.
	Circuit V is the second most corrected circuit after circuit VI, though Shropshire is not as heavily corrected as Cheshire, Gloucestershire and Worcestershire when their relative sizes (in terms of the amount of writing) are taken into account, and it is certainly more neatly written with fewer ink blots than Herefordshire. However, the number of sub-chapters and entries that the Great Domesday scribe initially omitted in it and then added is on a par with those added in Gloucestershire and Cheshire. He also briefly omitted one of Roger the hunter's estates and added it in the next sub-fief (4,26,7 scribe note). If all Earl Roger's lands in Shropshire, or at least those held by his men, were detailed together in one large hundredally-arranged section of the circuit volume (as suggested in SHR 4 Roger note), then the reason for several of these omissions would be clear, as he repeatedly worked through the folios and quires containing this large fief, picking out the holdings of each of the earl's subtenants. The more than the usual number of misplacements of details within entries, mentioned above, is especially noticeable where the nature of the T.R.E. tenure is concerned. Thus, the phrase 'as n manors' was misplaced in six entries (4,7,5. 4,14,7. 4,19,10. 4,27,18-19) and the fact that the T.R.E. holder was free was often interlined (not necessarily later) or, as in 4,3,2 included later in the entry. This might have been because the Great Domesday scribe changed the order of the material when editing the circuit volume (as he did when abbreviating Exon for the south-west counties, leading to such misplacements and omissions) or this information might have been detailed separately and he occasionally forgot to add it in the correct place. There is a suggestion that the nature of the T.R.E. tenure was not always initially thought to be of great importance, as it was the subject of later addition in a number of counties (especially in circuit II), so the few instances of its addition in Shropshire may have been as a result of a change in policy. 
	Both the main scribe and scribe B of Great Domesday made many of their corrections and additions to the Shropshire text almost certainly as a result of a check of the circuit volume, but this was not their only source, especially for scribe B. For example, the differences between some of the duplicate added entries and the corresponding entries written earlier suggests the use of another source than the circuit volume for the addition. During the initial writing up the main scribe regularly left spaces after the hidage for geld' or non geld' ('which pay(s) tax', 'which does/do not pay tax') in those estates for which the circuit volume apparently did not include this information; see 1,5 hide note. The later insertion of geld' or non geld' either in these spaces, or interlined when he had failed to leave a space, was probably as a result of going back to the source material of the circuit volume or even further, possibly to geld lists or other administrative documents. The use of such documents would explain why in certain entries where geld' or non geld' had been inserted, other items of information which they would not contain, were either corrected at a different time or by the other scribe (perhaps from a check of the circuit volume). Although there are no occurrences of this in Shropshire, there are many instances of it in other counties in Great Domesday Book.

Content and Layout of Entries
Shropshire is laid out in the regular Great Domesday format with the details of the county town (the City of Shrewsbury) preceding the list of landholders which is followed by the fiefs in the order and numbering of that list. Earl Roger was paramount lord of the shire, so apart from the land of the two diocesan bishops and of various churches, virtually all land (including what would normally be the Terra Regis)) was held from him. Thus in his 'chapter' are contained the lands of men who in other shires would hold from the king and would have chapters of their own. There is a similar arrangement in Cornwall where the bulk of the county was held from the Count of Mortain (CON 5), though there the Terra Regis is separate (CON 1). In Cheshire all but the church land was held from Earl Hugh, but there is no list of landholders and no numbered chapters. On the layout of this large 'chapter', see SHR 4 arrangement note.
	Earl Roger did not govern the whole of Shropshire, so the folios conclude with the lands (predominantly in the south of the country) of five tenants-in-chief who held from the king (SHR 5-9).
	A typical Shropshire entry is laid out as follows:
		A (the 1086 holder)† holds B (the place-name). [C holds from him.] D (sometimes 
		A, and then sometimes written after A) held it T.R.E. e hides/virgates which pay tax. 
		Land for f ploughs.‡ In lordship g ploughs; h slaves. k villagers and l smallholders 
		with m ploughs. Woodland for n pigs.≠ Value before 1066, £ s d; value now £ s d.

†  The subtenant of Earl Roger for sub-chapters 4,2-4,27.

‡  The 'land for' formula for the plough estimate was only regularly used from sub-chapters 4,14; before that the scribe stated how many more ploughs would be possible (predominantly after the ploughs of the 'villagers'); see 1,5 land note.

≠  For woodland described not in terms of pigs, but measured in leagues, in four hundreds, see {Introduction: Writing and Correction}.

Other categories of population occasionally mentioned include ploughmen (bouarii), cottagers (cotarii), riders (radmans), priests, Welshmen, Frenchmen (francigenae), burgesses, reeves (prepositi), settlers (hospites), smiths (fabri), free men (liberi homines), freemen (franci homines) and, only on the Lacy lordship lands (see {Introduction: Writing and Correction}), a miller and a beekeeper.
	Some ninety mills are also recorded, mostly one per estate, and generally preceding the woodland; see 1,7 mill note. Twenty-eight fisheries are mentioned; see 3b,2 fisheries note. Eighty hedged enclosures are also included; see 3c,2 enclosures note. For how woodland is recorded, see {Introduction: Writing and Correction}. However, very unusually there is no mention in Shropshire of any meadow or pasture; in the rest of circuit V meadow is recorded, but there is only one instance of pasture each in Cheshire, Herefordshire and Worcestershire and four in Gloucestershire. How much meadow and pasture were among the questions apparently asked during the Domesday Enquiry (Inquisitio Eliensis: Hamilton, p. 97), so the omission of all references to them here, when they surely must have existed, may suggest a defect in the instructions received by the sheriff and passed on to those conducting the Survey and to the hundred courts. There are also more than the usual number of entries in Shropshire where no resources at all are recorded and this seems to be reflected in the great many spaces left between the details of population and the value statement. 
	Caution must always be exercised when trying to read the mind of the main scribe of Great Domesday, but he does seem to have realized this deficiency in his source material, not merely where all resources were missing but where only, say, a mill or a hedged enclosure was recorded. Although in other Great Domesday counties he often left a space before the value statement, in Shropshire such spaces were almost non-existent when there was a relatively full complement of resources (excluding meadow and pasture). A few small spaces were left when no resources were recorded, but for the most part Shropshire was written in a small script with very little space between sentences, so that the size (often half a line or more) of the gaps regularly left when no resources, or apparently not all the resources, were mentioned does suggest they were deliberately left, like the spaces after the hidage for the later insertion of geld' or non geld' (1,5 hide note) and like those apparently left for a hundred head (4,1,22 earl note) and occasionally for other missing information (though in five entries the exact nature of this is not clear: 3f,2 church note). See 4,20,14 [***] note. The spaces left for this omitted material are indicated in the translation as [***]. Because the scribe did regularly leave a space before any subholdings in Shropshire, it is sometimes not clear whether, if the resources preceding them are wholly or partly missing, the space served a double purpose; some subjectivity is thus inevitable in indicating the spaces in the translation. It should be noted that a number of entries lack resources and the scribe did not leave a space, possibly by mistake, as he sometimes failed to leave spaces for the taxability.
	Waste is recorded in about a third of the 500 or so entries in Domesday Shropshire. Many estates were waste only in 1066 and/or when the current tenant took them over, but some fifty were waste in 1086 as well, and some thirteen, nine of which had values recorded for them T.R.E. (and, once, 'later' as well), were 'now waste', occasionally only partially (as in 2,1. 4,5,3. 4,14,19).
	Subholdings within estates are mentioned less than thirty times and include the brief mentions of the possessions of St Peter's of Shrewsbury. More than a third of these mentions are in 4,1, which contained larger and more complex estates, formerly held by King Edward and his major earls. There are virtually none of the interesting 'extras' that in some Great Domesday counties are mentioned after the value of an entry: there are references to a claim in 4,4,23 and 4,26,3, to the fact that the 1086 tenant held land 'wrongfully' in 4,20,19, and one customary due is recorded in 4,1,21. As was the case with the Count of Mortain in Cornwall, so in Shropshire Earl Roger's position meant that there were few alienations.

Duplicate Entries
The following Shropshire places appear to be the subject of double entries. A duplicate entry can be identified with varying degrees of certainty, depending on the amount of information given in each entry and the degree of similarity. Each case is discussed more fully in the notes:
	Brockton: 4,12,1 and 4,27,30.
	Cascob: 5,6 and HEF 24,3
	Earls Ditton: 6,4 and 7,2
	Farlow: 4,28,5 and HEF 1,10a
	Overs: 4,1,34 and 4,27,14
	Sheinton: 4,11,1 and 6,32.
In the case of Cascob and Farlow the entries for these estates in the Herefordshire folios are lacking detail and are similar to cross-references.
In the case of Brockton, Earls Ditton, Overs and Sheinton, one of the two entries for each was a later addition, perhaps from a different source.

Hundred Heads 
Thanks to the hundredal rubrication provided in Great Domesday, the content of the 1086 hundreds can largely be reconstructed, but it is a considerable exaggeration to say that the headings are given 'with so much more fullness and care than in most other counties' (VCH  Shropshire, i. p. 283). In fact about thirty (that is, twenty per cent) of the necessary hundred heads appear to be missing. Some doubt remains about how many exactly should be restored and, even when an absence can be detected, about precisely which name is missing: {Introduction: Hundreds}. 

Standard Order of Hundreds
In Great Domesday the main scribe seems to have intended to specify within each fief the hundred to which each estate belonged. In each fief in most counties he either entered all the manors in one hundred as a single block before passing to another hundred, or divided the feudal schedule into lands held in lordship and lands subinfeudated, and entered the hundreds in the same sequence in each half. Moreover, in many counties these hundreds are entered in a fixed sequence in most chapters possibly for two reasons. Firstly, because material in the predecessor 'circuit volume' had been converted to 'feudal' form, which was done by identifying the possessions of each landholder from a pile of returns, each of which contained the details of all the estates that lay in one hundred. Secondly, because the Great Domesday scribe, or more probably the scribes of the preceding circuit volume, in abstracting their data from a hundredally-arranged corpus of material (perhaps similar in form to the Inquisitio Comitatus Cantabrigiensis) were considerably influenced by its order. Such Inquest material may have been given its shape from a check-list based on previous administrative documents, or the order may represent that in which each hundred jury was called into the shire court. These predictable sequences of material can be a great help in checking and supplementing the hundredal rubrication of Domesday Book, especially in those counties where it is largely or completely missing.
	This phenomenon was first systematically studied by Sawyer, 'The "Original Returns" and Domesday Book'. He did not perceive such a regular order in Shropshire (p. 181). Here, as in a few other counties, his conclusions need revision in the light of more recent studies. It is true that in the case of Shropshire, few such blocks and no such sequence are immediately apparent. Chris Lewis has shown, however, that within the sub-fiefs of a number of Earl Roger's subtenants fragments of a sequence can be found; see Lewis, 'Introduction', Shropshire Domesday, pp. 9-10 and his Table 3.
	To perceive this regularity, it is necessary to leave aside the ecclesiastical lands (SHR 1-3), the lordship manors of Earl Roger himself (4,1 and the supplement that forms most of 4,28), the lands of the lay tenants-in-chief (SHR 5-9), as well as those six sub-chapters (4,2,12;13;15;17;24) which contain lands in only one hundred. The manors held by Earl Roger in lordship are in effect the Shropshire Terra Regis, and in other counties the sequence of the Terra Regis does not usually correspond to the regular order in other fiefs. Moreover, these Shropshire manors are arranged not by hundred but by their 1066 holders. 
	Further, one must accept that the last entries in some sub-fiefs can either be genuinely postscriptal or contain material briefly omitted and added out of sequence. Thus the last two entries in William Pandolf's sub-fief (4,14,28-29) for Ingardine in 'Conditre' Hundred and "Buchehale" in Patton Hundred are postscriptal entries and of these "Buchehale" is out of sequence. The last entry in Reginald the sheriff's subtenancy (4,3,71), for Albrighton in Baschurch Hundred, was added; the scribe had already detailed lands in that hundred (4,3,49-59). The last three entries in 4,4 are for holdings in Baschurch and Wrockwardine Hundreds and the last is out of sequence, but this is probably because the Roger mentioned in these three entries as the subtenant is not Roger son of Corbet, the tenant of the rest of 4,4. In Ralph of Mortimer's sub-fief the last three entries (4,11,17-19) belong to Wrockwardine Hundred which is inscribed out of sequence, but not apparently as a later addition.
	Moreover, the full sequence of hundreds never appears in any one sub-fief, nor does Shrewsbury Hundred appear at all in SHR 4, while five of the 28 sub-fiefs contain lands in only one hundred and four (4,1-2. 4,27-28) can be excluded for other reasons. Even so, it is possible to see that in six or more sub-chapters (4,3-4,5. 4,8. 4.14. 4,16 certainly and 4,11 and 4,21 possibly) the scribe was attempting to enter material in the following fixed hundredal order (the numbering is that of Lewis): (1 Shrewsbury), 2 Hodnet, 3 Patton, 4 Condover, 5 "Rinlau", 6 "Reweset", 7 Wittery, 8 Wrockwardine, 9 "Merset", 10 "Culvestan", 11 Leintwardine, 12 'Overs', 13 Baschurch, 14 "Alnodestreu" and 15 'Conditre'  The fact that in the adjacent sub-chapters of the brothers Roger son of Corbet and Robert son of Corbet their holdings in the same hundreds are entered in the same sequence (Condover, "Rinlau", "Reweset", Wittery, the 'standard' one) may suggest that they once shared a single chapter in the circuit volume or that their holdings were detailed next to each other within each hundred in a composite section on Earl Roger's lands (4,5 Robert note). They also shared the vills of Marche and Rorrington. Some features, such as the fact that lands in "Culvestan" Hundred almost invariably precede those in Leintwardine, are even more regular.
	Such an order, once perceived, can be used, together with cases where different parts of a vill appear in different fiefs to check the accuracy and fullness of the hundredal rubrication supplied by Domesday Shropshire. For example, Clungunford appears directly below a Leintwardine hundred head at 4,3,46, while at 4,20,24 the Leintwardine head is six entries before it. This makes it probable that these six places lay in Leintwardine Hundred and that no hundred head should be restored.
	The scribe seems generally to have been concerned to insert hundred heads and he supplemented these with a number of 'follow-on' headings: thus in eodem hundredo ('in the same hundred') is placed above Shelton (1,4), in hoc hundredo ('in this hundred') in the entry for Hopton at 4,8,3, and in isto hundredo ('in this hundred') above Broom at 4,26,2. In ipso/eodem hundredo ('in that/the same hundred') occur at 4,4,6, and 4,9,4 in relation to two unnamed manors, a usage that is common elsewhere in Domesday Book. He also left a number of spaces for hundred heads, suggesting that his source was incomplete, and he added three hundred heads at a later stage.
	That the scribe had a fixed order in his mind or written on a check-list seems evident from the fact that on three occasions (4,9,1. 4,11,5. 7,1) he inserted a Baschurch hundred heading when he should have written "Alnodestreu". Baschurch Hundred immediately precedes "Alnodestreu" Hundred in the 'standard' sequence.

Order of Vills
In a number of counties where the same places appear in two or more fiefs, they are found in the same relative order. This suggests that at some point in the process material was arranged by hundred and by vill as in the Inquisitio Comitatus Cantabrigiensis. In the majority of Shropshire vills there is only one manor, bur there are a few cases where a vill is divided between holders and the same men hold in another vill. Thus Leintwardine (4,20,20. 6,11) and Adley (4,20,26. 6,27-28) are in the same relative order, as are Stapleton (4,4,2. 4,27,9, assuming that Hundeslit is correctly identified) and Eyton (4,4,9. 4,27,16), as well as Marche (4,4,17. 4,5,10) and Rorrington (4,4,21. 4,5,12). This last pair is from sub-chapters held by the brothers Robert and Roger, the sons of Corbet, whose lands might have been a single fief in a circuit volume, unless the whole of chapter 4 was: 4,5 Robert note. In the case of Drayton (4,14,9. 4,19,8) and Lawley (4,14,21. 4,19,6) the order is inverted.

SPECIAL FEATURES
Boroughs
In the list of questions prefaced to the Inquisitio Eliensis which purport to be those that framed the Domesday Enquiry, there is no mention of boroughs or cities. Apparently as a result, the survey of boroughs was neither as standardized nor as complete as that of rural manors. London and Winchester were entirely omitted and in some counties there is a suspicion that information that might point to the existence of a borough (in the non-legal sense) has not been included.
	Domesday mentions only two 'boroughs' in Shropshire in 1086: Shrewsbury itself, called not a burgus ('borough') but a civitas ('city'), a term reserved for the most important and often most ancient urban places, and Quatford which was called a borough. Shrewsbury was the county town and its details stand at the head of the shire, before the list of landholders, as commonly in the layout of Great Domesday. In addition to details contained in the borough entry (C1-14), there is also information given in the Survey of estates in Shrewsbury's own hundred, also called the 'hundred of the city' (1,3) at 1,1-2. 3b,1. 3g,1-2. 3h,1, and in the summary note concerning Earl Roger's lordship lands (4,1,37). It would be expected that a number of rural manors would have burgesses in Shrewsbury belonging to them, but they are only mentioned at the nearby manors of Meole Brace (6,33) and Woodcote (4,5,8). A messuage in the city is mentioned under the entry for Emstrey (3b,3).
	Quatford was probably a private enterprise of Earl Roger, built east of the River Severn on the land of Quatt that he held as part of Staffordshire, though he had annexed Quatford to his Shropshire manor of Eardington (4,1,32 Quatford note). The borough rendered nothing, probably because it was so small and new. It did not last but was transferred to Bridgnorth by Earl Roger or his sons who succeeded him: {Introduction: History}.
	There is no reason to think that Domesday has omitted reference to any other boroughs, though a number of Domesday Shropshire estates or members of them did begin to show signs (the presence of burgesses and burgages for example) of growing into boroughs after 1086, though the development of some was arrested. These were Acton Burnell (4,4,3), Albrighton (4,25,6), Baschurch (4,1,3), Bishops Castle (part of Lydbury North, 2,1), Bridgnorth (4,1,5 Morville note), Burford (5,1), Cause (4,4,20 Worthen note), Cleobury Mortimer (6,2), Clun (4,20,8), Market Drayton (4,14,9), Ellesmere (4,1,19) Ludlow (part of Stanton Lacy 7,4), Lydham (4,1,14), Madeley (3c,4), Montgomery (4,1,15;35-36), Newport (part of Edgmond, 4,1,23), Oswestry (part of Maesbury 4,1,11), Ruyton-Eleven-Towns (4,18,2), Shifnal (4,9,1), Stottesdon (4,1,30) and Much Wenlock (3c,2).

Castles
Domesday Shropshire indicates the existence of a castle at Shrewsbury (C14) which, as in other towns, had led to the clearance of houses, but no reduction of dues. There were strategically important castles at Montgomery (4,1,15;35-36) and at Oswestry, the latter built on the land of Maesbury (4,1,11). Helgot had a castle at Holdgate (4,21,6), perhaps as much a personal residence and seat of power as a bulwark against the penetration of Corvedale by the Welsh. There was probably a castle at Quatford (part of Eardington, 4,1,32) built by Earl Roger and soon removed to Bridgnorth (4,1,5 Morville note).
	After 1086, other castles were constructed, some in border positions, others as the centres of baronies; some served both purposes. Those mentioned in the notes are: Bishops Castle built on the episcopal estate of Lydbury North (2,1); Cause (4,4,20 Worthen note), Clun and the more westerly Newcastle (4,20,8); Hopton Castle (4,20,12); Knockin (4,3,43); Ludlow (7,4); Pulverbatch (4,26,4); Redcastle (4,10,3); Shrawardine (4,3,50); Stanton Lacy (7,4); Stokesay (7,5); Wem (4,14,4) and Whittington (4,1,12).
	From a strategic point of view, Wigmore Castle (HEF 9,1) and Richard's Castle (HEF 24,13), though in Herefordshire in 1086, were important for the defence of Shropshire.

Salt
Shropshire did not have access to salt gathered from the sea or from tidal rivers, but, as in other midland shires, there were connections between individual manors and the salt springs of Droitwich (Worcestershire). Donington (4,1,25) had five salt-houses there and Ditton Priors (4,1,26) had one. Caynham (4,11,4) was entitled to four packloads of salt from Droitwich. The possession by Morville (4,1,5) of an outlier at Chawson (Worcestershire) would have given that manor access to the commodity. This is unlikely to be the full picture for it is suspected that the entering of this information was sporadic, as was other information that was not asked for in the questions that are prefaced to the Inquisitio Eliensis. Surprisingly, there is no mention of any link between a Shropshire manor and the salt-springs that were surveyed in Domesday in the adjacent shire of Cheshire (CHS S).

EDITORIAL
Identification of Places
Total and secure identification of places which is so vital for a study of the text of Domesday is a long and complex task. First the editor has to be satisfied that the evolution of the place-name from the Domesday form to the modern form is credible and that there are enough intermediate forms to prove it. The 1086 hundred must be established in order to distinguish this place from others of the same name in the county, and this entails a minute study of the text to perceive hundredal groupings and to restore or change hundred heads and an investigation of the later hundredal arrangement. Then the identification must be clinched by a study of genealogy and manorial descent. Lastly the manorial and other details of each Domesday entry, such as lands added or taken away, mills, fisheries and salt-workings, must be harmonized with the identification.
	Much of the detail of this task is outside the scope of this edition and must rely on or await the work of other scholars; meanwhile however, the notes that accompany this edition, while they do not claim to be exhaustive, are intended to offer enough later information from selected (mostly published) sources (usually down to about 1350) to support the identification of all places, especially of those that might reasonably be questioned, and to show where further research is needed.
	In the Phillimore printed edition (1986) we wrote: 'While the identification of places in Great Domesday Shropshire as a whole is not as difficult as in the adjacent Herefordshire, much work remains to be done to put the names of the county on a secure footing. The surveys at present available lack rigour or depth: the admirable Ekwall, Dictionary of English Placenames, gives brief consideration only to the major names, while earlier surveys such as that of Duignan ('Some Shropshire Place-Names') are both superficial and unreliable. Even more attention must be given to minor and field-names which later documents often show to be members of a Domesday manor but which are not named in 1086. Only when the promised English-Place-Name Society volumes appear, the magnificent volumes of the Victoria county History are completed, the Rotuli Hundredorum indexed and the Book of Fees and Feudal Aids re-indexed will the student of Domesday have the reliable tools he needs. Moreover, many of the Domesday places in the west of the county are poorly documented at a crucial stage of their evolution, because they were drawn into Welshries or Marcher lordships for which feudal lists do not survive to the same extent as they do for English manors'.
	Since that was written, two more volumes of the Victoria County History (x and xi) have appeared and four volumes of the Place-Names of Shropshire (edited by Margaret Gelling in collaboration with H.D.G. Foxall), of which volume i, in a departure from normal practice, consists of an alphabetical list of all the major settlement names for the whole county. These include those of all the Domesday estates. The arrival of these volumes has already put the manorial history and the place-names for the estates they contain on a much sounder footing.
	The Phillimore printed edition of 1986 was based on a careful study of the text, the systematic insertion of hundred heads and the study of later documents. Eyton had already proposed identifications for the places of Domesday Shropshire. The vast majority of his identifications, the fruit of the enormous toil that produced the Antiquities of Shropshire, have stood up to scrutiny. These were available to the editors of VCH Shropshire, i., who made some revisions, most of which have likewise endured. The present editors, standing on the shoulders of these forebears, proposed some further changes (tabulated in the Phillimore printed edition of Shropshire, Introductory Note 2: The Identification of Places). The identifications there suggested were reviewed but not changed for the Alecto edition (1990) and have been largely accepted by Place-Names of Shropshire, i. A few identifications (Selley for Hibrihteselle, 4,20,27; 'Munton' for Muletune, 4,27,23; Perkley for Petelie, 3c,7; Lowe for Lai, 4,8,7 and Lurkenhope for Edretehope, 4,20,23) about which doubts were expressed in the Phillimore printed edition have been rejected by Place-Names of Shropshire, but have here been left in place. VCH Shropshire, x. p. 266, has re-adopted Eyton's Brodesley for Bosle (4,21,11), but this has been left unidentified here, as in Place-Names of Shropshire. The two changes here made are the acceptance of Colehurst instead of Cross Hills for Corselle (4,14,15): Place-Names of Shropshire, p. 95, and the tentative identification of Humet (5,4) as Kinsham.

State of Revision
The Phillimore edition of Shropshire was published in 1986. The translation was drafted by Celia Parker, the maps were the work of Frank Thorn, Jim Hardy and David Bilbey and the volume was edited by Frank and Caroline Thorn. When it appeared, Shropshire, together with its predecessor Devon (1985), was the most heavily annotated of the Phillimore volumes. For the present edition, even though a full revision did not seem necessary, a number of changes and additions have been made:
•	The Introduction has been expanded with additional sections on Geography, Administration of the Shire, Manorial Organization, Ecclesiastical Organization, The Domesday Format and Special Features. The sections on History and Hundreds have been expanded to take account of F.R.Thorn's work for the Alecto edition (1990).
•	Both in the Introduction (The Domesday Format) and in the Notes, additional information has been included concerning the order of writing, the circuit, the ruling pattern used in Shropshire, the problems faced by the main scribe of Great Domesday and the corrections and additions made by him and scribe B. This information comes largely from the researches of Caroline Thorn and Michael Gullick which will be published as Thorn, Thorn and Gullick, The Scribal History of Great Domesday Book. As the work of scribe B was not identified and other advances in the understanding of the writing of Domesday Book were not made until after the Phillimore printed edition went to press, the notes therein contain some information that has been superseded by further research.
•	The Notes have taken account of the appearance of the Haughmond Cartulary, of VCH Shropshire, volumes x and xi (the latter was consulted in proof for the 1986 edition), of the English Place-Name Society volumes i-iv for Shropshire and of an important article by S. Bassett on the Shrewsbury churches.
•	References have been included to all known Anglo-Saxon charters.
•	All Domesday estates have been systematically designated either as Ancient Parishes, Townships or Chapelries. 
•	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. 
•	The bibliographical and other conventions have been changed to align them with the other counties that have been revised for the current project.
•	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 some of the notes to justify both these forms of identification were written by John Palmer and these have been attributed to him as (JP) put at the end of his paragraph. 
•	Obvious typographical errors in the Phillimore printed notes have been corrected.

Acknowledgements
Shropshire was published in the Phillimore series in 1986. The acknowledgements to that edition read:
'The editors once again wish to thank John McN Dodgson, who is seeing this series through the press, for his constant support, encouragement and advice, especially about personal names. Staff at the Public Record Office in Chancery Lane and at Kew, especially Miss D. Gifford before her retirement, Dr Elizabeth Hallam Smith and then Dr Helen Forde, have never failed to assist Caroline Thorn in her consultation of the manuscript of Exchequer DB, even at a time when it had been dismembered and was at the delicate stages of being photographed and prepared for rebinding. Dr Margaret Gelling, who is preparing the English Place-Name Society volumes for Shropshire, looked over an early draft of the place-name identifications in 1976 and more recently has most kindly answered the editors' questions on a number of points: the notes to 1,9. 3g,9. 4,4,25 and 4,28,6 have benefited from her help. Mr George Baugh, editor of the Victoria County History for Shropshire, supplied the identification of Chawson (4,1,5) for the Worcestershire volume and with his assistants, Dr David Cox and Dr Paul Stamper, has been both courteous and generous with help and time, supplying information for the notes on 'Chatsall' (1,9) and 'Charlton' (3g,9), suggesting several important references, allowing Frank Thorn to read the corrected proofs of VCH volume xi at Shrewsbury and providing him with a warm welcome and a desk. To Dr Cox is owed the identification of Perkley (3c,7).
	Staff at the Shropshire Record Office have been invariably helpful, even when busiest. Mr Bruce Coplestone-Crow who has worked extensively on material relating to medieval Herefordshire again placed unreservedly at the disposal of the editors a quantity of material relating to those places, now in Herefordshire, that lay in the south of Shropshire in 1086. Philip Barker kindly sent a photocopy of his work on Hen Domen from which the notes to 4,l,15;35-36 benefited greatly. At a late stage, the editors profited by an exchange of lists with Mr Chris Lewis. Jim Foy, by reading the indices and the translation again saved the editors from a number of slips and errors, while Angela Cartwright typed the indices and notes at great speed and with much sacrifice to meet the deadline for publication.
	This edition, the eleventh and last volume prepared by the present editors for the Phillimore series, was produced under considerable pressure in order to be ready for the 900th anniversary of Domesday Book. But any errors, omissions, confusions or failures to take advice are the editors' responsibility.'

For the present revision, we have received continuing support from Mr J.D. Foy who is always ready to answer a question from his knowledge or his library. Caroline Thorn has benefited from continued permission to consult the manuscript of Great Domesday Book at the Public Record Office and in addition to those acknowledged above, thanks are also due to Mario Aleppo and John Abbott.

F.R. Thorn
C.M.J. Thorn
January 2005
June 2007