WARWICKSHIRE
(version 1a)

INTRODUCTION

COUNTY BOUNDARY
The 1086 county differed in a number of ways from the modern (pre-1974) shire. Some of the changes were minor, but a number were of greater significance:
	In 1086, the Gloucestershire, Worcestershire, Warwickshire and Oxfordshire boundaries were much interlaced. It seems that the Mercian shires were first mapped out in the late tenth or early eleventh century with the intention of allocating 1200 hides or multiples of them, to a 'county' town. The simple arrangement which might have resulted was complicated by an attempt to keep all the scattered holdings of a particular church in its county, as a round 100 hides or multiple thereof. Thus the Gloucestershire churches of Tewkesbury and Deerhurst, like several of the Worcestershire churches, have a number of detached holdings surrounded by other counties. The effect of the nineteenth-century and twentieth-century Boundary Orders has been to abolish all such detachments.
	On the Staffordshire-Warwickshire border, the division of the borough of Tamworth between those two counties, which put the castle in one county and the church in the other, was only rationalized in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; see STS 1,9 Tamworth note. Elsewhere on this border, the growth of Birmingham drew Handsworth (STS 12,29), Harborne (STS 2,22), Perry (STS 12,27) and Smethwick (STS 2,22) into it and so, in a sense into Warwickshire.
	Similarly on the Warwickshire-Worcestershire border, a number of places were absorbed from Worcestershire into Birmingham (by the major city expansions of 1911 and 1931) and so, by association, became parts of Warwickshire. These were: Bartley Green (WOR 23,1), 'Lindsworth' (WOR  1,1a), Moseley (WOR 1,1a), Kings Norton (WOR 1,1a), Northfield (WOR  23,2), part of Rednal  (WOR 1,1a), Selly Oak (WOR  23,1;5), 'Tessal' (WOR 1,1a) and Yardley (WOR  9,2). At the same time a number of Warwickshire places were also absorbed by Birmingham: Aston, Witton, Erdington, Edgbaston, and Birmingham itself (WAR 27,1-5).
	Ostensibly, according to Domesday four manors (Quatt, Romsley, Rudge and Shipley: WAR 12,8-11), held in 1086 by Earl Roger of Shrewsbury lay in Warwickshire. Before the forfeiture of the earldom by his son Robert they had, along with other adjacent possessions in Staffordshire (Claverley, Kingsnordley, Alveley (STS 8,1-3) held by Earl Roger and Worfield (STS 9,1) held by his son Hugh of Montgomery) been drawn into Shropshire.  If Quatt, Romsley, Rudge and Shipley really lay in Warwickshire in 1086, they were isolated from it by the whole breadth of Staffordshire, and they did not even form a continuous geographical entity, since they were intermingled with the Staffordshire estates of Alveley, Claverley, Kingsnordley and Worfield. It is more likely that Domesday is mistaken and that they were in fact in Staffordshire. Similar mistakes occur elsewhere; for example, Earl Aubrey’s single Dorset holding is wrongly entered in the Wiltshire folios (WIL 23,10) and in those of Northamptonshire are included manors that were really held by the Bishop of Coutances and Hugh of Grandmesnil in Oxfordshire (NTH 4,30-36. 23,16-19) and by Saint-Rémy’s of Rheims in Staffordshire (NTH 16,1-2). Such mistakes would tend to occur at an earlier stage of the Domesday enquiry when the primary division of material was not by county but by fief as in the Liber Exoniensis (Exon). That these four entries here were mistakenly included in Warwickshire is the view of VCH Shropshire, i. p. 286, of VCH Staffordshire, iv. p. 59 note 21, and of Eyton, Domesday Studies: Staffordshire, pp. 2-5. The study of the hidation of Staffordshire in Bridgeman and Mander, 'Staffordshire Hidation', makes it likely that this whole area formed a Staffordshire 30-hide unit. More recently, Mason, ‘Norman Earls of Shrewsbury’, pp. 157-60, arguing from the uncertain evidence of diocesan boundaries, has suggested that these four estates were actually in Warwickshire but the argument is not compelling. See STS {Introduction: County Boundary} and NTH {Introduction: Places entered in the Wrong Domesday County}.

The post-1086 changes to the county boundary are summarized below:

PLACE	1086	LATER	
Warwickshire/ Gloucestershire Border

ADMINGTON (GLS 11,11)

CLIFFORD CHAMBERS (GLS 1,37)

LOWER CLOPTON (GLS 34,3)

UPPER CLOPTON (GLS 1,12 )

LITTLE COMPTON (GLS 20,1)

DORSINGTON (GLS 40,1)

LONG MARSTON (GLS 15,1 )

MEON (GLS 1,12 )

PRESTON-ON-STOUR (GLS 20,1)

LOWER QUINTON (GLS 62,4)

UPPER QUINTON (GLS 62,3)

LARK STOKE (GLS 12,8)

SUTTON-UNDER-BRAILES (GLS 19,2)

WELFORD-ON-AVON including 'Weston Cantilupe' and 'Weston Maudit' (GLS 12,7. 20,1. 62,5)

WILLICOTE (GLS 62,6)

WINCOT (GLS 1,42. 33,1)

In Gloucestershire

In Gloucestershire

In Gloucestershire

In Gloucestershire

In Gloucestershire

In Gloucestershire

In Gloucestershire

In Gloucestershire

In Gloucestershire

In Gloucestershire

In Gloucestershire

In Gloucestershire

In Gloucestershire

In Gloucestershire

In Gloucestershire

In Gloucestershire

To Warwickshire in 1935

To Warwickshire in 1931

To Warwickshire in 1935

To Warwickshire in 1935

To Warwickshire in 1844

To Warwickshire in 1931

To Warwickshire in 1931

To Warwickshire in 1935

To Warwickshire in 1931

To Warwickshire in 1935

To Warwickshire in 1935

To Warwickshire in 1935

To Warwickshire in 1844

To Warwickshire in 1931

To Warwickshire in 1931

To Warwickshire in 1931
	
Warwickshire/ Northamptonshire Border

MOLLINGTON (NTH 35,26. OXF 17,7. WAR 37,9)

STONETON (NTH 27,1)

Apparently divided between three counties in 1086

In Northamptonshire

The Northamptonshire portion transferred to Oxfordshire or Warwickshire early; see NTH 35,26 Mollington note. 

To Warwickshire in 1895	
Warwickshire/ Oxfordshire Border 

MOLLINGTON (NTH 35,26. OXF 17,7. WAR 37,9.)

Apparently divided between three counties in 1086; see NTH 35,26 Mollington note. 

The Warwickshire portion transferred to Oxfordshire in 1896
	
Warwickshire/ Staffordshire Border

HANDSWORTH (STS 12,29)

HARBORNE (STS 2,22)

PERRY (STS 12,27)

SMETHWICK (STS 2,22)

TAMWORTH (STS 1,9;30. WAR 1,5)

Entirely in Staffordshire

Entirely in Staffordshire

Entirely in Staffordshire

Entirely in Staffordshire

Divided between Staffordshire and Warwickshire

Absorbed by the borough of Birmingham (Warwickshire) in 1911

Absorbed by the borough of Birmingham (Warwickshire) in 1912

Divided in 1928 between the borough of West Bromwich (Staffordshire), Sutton Coldfield (Warwickshire) and Birmingham (Warwickshire)

Absorbed by the borough of Birmingham (Warwickshire) in 1912

Placed entirely in Staffordshire by a series of boundary changes (1866, 1894, 1932, 1965)
	
Warwickshire/ Worcestershire Border

ALDERMINSTER (WOR 9,3)

BARTLEY GREEN (WOR 23,1)

BICKMARSH (WAR 43,2)

BLACKWELL (WOR 2,46)

IPSLEY (WAR 37,6)

'LINDSWORTH' (WOR  1,1a)

LONGDON (WOR 2,47)

MOSELEY (WOR 1,1a)

KINGS NORTON (WOR 1,1a)

NORTHFIELD (WOR  23,2)

OLDBERROW (WOR 10,4)

REDNAL (WOR 1,1a )

SELLY OAK (WOR  23,1;5)

SHIPSTON-ON-STOUR (WOR 2,64)

'TESSALL' (WOR 1,1a)

TIDMINGTON (WOR 2,45)

TREDINGTON (WOR 2,45)

YARDLEY (WOR  9,2)

In Worcestershire

In Worcestershire

In Warwickshire

In Worcestershire

In Warwickshire

In Worcestershire

In Worcestershire

In Worcestershire

In Worcestershire

In Worcestershire

In Worcestershire

In Worcestershire

In Worcestershire

In Worcestershire

In Worcestershire

In Worcestershire

In Worcestershire

In Worcestershire

To Warwickshire in 1931

To Birmingham in 1911

To Worcestershire in 1931

To Warwickshire in 1931

To Worcestershire in 1931

To Birmingham in 1911

To Warwickshire in 1931

To Birmingham in 1911

To Birmingham in 1911

To Birmingham in 1911

To Warwickshire in 1894

Mostly to Birmingham in 1911

To Birmingham in 1911

To Warwickshire in 1931

To Birmingham in 1911

To Warwickshire in 1931

To Warwickshire in 1931

To Birmingham in 1911

The dates of boundary changes are derived from Youngs, Local Administrative Units, ii. passim

HUNDREDS
For this partial revision of the Phillimore printed edition, the form of some of the hundred names has been revised to take account of whether the name is found only in Domesday Book (in double inverted commas), whether the place that gave the name survived into later times but has since disappeared (in single inverted commas), or whether the name is still extant:
Phillimore printed edition	This revision	

Barcheston
Brinklow
Coleshill
Ferncombe
Fexhole
Hunsbury
Marton
Pathlow
Stoneleigh
Tremlow
	
Barcheston
‘Bumbelowe’
Coleshill
"Fernecumbe"
"Fexhole"
‘Hunesberi’
Marton
Pathlow
Stoneleigh
‘Tremlowe’

THE DOMESDAY FORMAT
The Manuscript
The manuscript is written on leaves, or folios, of parchment (sheep-skin), measuring about 15 inches by 11 inches (38 centimetres by 28 centimetres). There are two columns to each page, four to each folio. The folios were numbered in the seventeenth century, and the four columns of each are here lettered a, b, c, d (JRM).
	Chapter numbers and titles are throughout in red ink. Hundred headings, place-names, and the landholder's name in the first section of each chapter are scored through in red, but Latin de, where it occurs in such names, is not scored through, except in chapter 7; on folio 238cd to folio 242ab (WAR 21, ROBERTUS de Oilgi) both halves of the name are scored, but from folio 242cd onward (WAR 22, ROBERTUS de Stadford) only the first name is scored. Each chapter begins with an extra large capital, outlined in red. The account of the borough begins with a huge I- entirely in red, covering three lines, and the initials T and C (B4;6) are large red-outlined capitals (JRM).
	Entries within chapters are throughout distinguished by a new line beginning with a capital, outlined in red except in 17,18 (JRM).
	Men's holdings in Warwickshire, in lay, but not church, chapters, are meticulously distinguished, by a small space, up to WAR 22; by section signs, resembling a gallows in shape, as shown in Farley, (WAR 12, and from folio 241b, excepting 19,2-4;6); and, up to WAR 22, by an extra large capital letter. Except in WAR 16, and in entries beginning idem, they begin with De. The manuscript here uses two types of capital D, not distinguished from each other by Farley, a rounded letter resembling an inverted Q (here represented by D) and an angular letter, tapering to a blunted point at the top (here represented by d), both used sometimes to mark the beginning of the men's holdings, sometimes for decorative effect. D is found at 12,3, with d in 12,4;6-11; in WAR 17 and WAR 18, D and d alternate regularly, except that 17,22-23 are both d, 17,64-65 both D; WAR 19 has D, without the 'gallows' sign, in 19,2-4;6, and d with a 'gallows' sign in 19,5; 22,11 has D without a sign, 22,12-27  d with sign; and d with sign is used throughout in later chapters (JRM).

Places entered in the Wrong Domesday County
A literal reading of the folios for Warwickshire and other counties in the same circuit (Circuit IV) would suggest that, in 1086, they contained places that are otherwise universally evidenced in some other county. It is unlikely that these places were outliers of one county marooned in another; more probable that their presence in an unexpected county is the result of some scribal confusion. At one stage in the complex process that produced Great Domesday, material was probably grouped by fief and within it by county as in the Liber Exonioensis (Exon). It would be easy for a county heading to be missing in such a schedule or for the main scribe of Great Domesday to fail to see one, especially if it was partly or wholly in the margin; he would thus have continued entering in one county places that belonged to another. In most cases in Domesday Warwickshire, the lands concerned are entered at the end of the fief and in some cases there is a hundred heading that manifestly relates the estate to a county other than Warwickshire. Moreover, other parts of some vills are entered in their correct county.
	Entered in the Warwickshire folios are Spelsbury (3,6) which should rightly have been included in Oxfordshire, and Essington, with a virgate in Bushbury (27,6), and Chillington (28,19) that were properly in Staffordshire and are entered under the name of a Staffordshire hundred, Cuttlestone Hundred. The entry for Essington and Bushbury is also repeated, correctly, in Staffordshire (STS 12,22).
	Conversely, a number of places that must have lain in Warwickshire in 1086 are wrongly entered in Northamptonshire: Sawbridge (NTH 10,3), Berkswell (NTH 19,2); Over Whitacre (NTH 19,3); Over (NTH 36,4) and Whichford (NTH 46,7). Of these, Sawbridge perhaps lay close enough to the border to have been an outlier of Northamptonshire in 1086; see NTH 10,3 Sawbridge note. In addition the 'Bromwich' that is entered in Northamptonshire (NTH 36,3) is certainly misplaced: it is probably represented by West Bromwich in Staffordshire rather than Castle Bromwich, Wood Bromwich and Little Bromwich in Warwickshire; see NTH 36,3 Bromwich note.

EDITORIAL
The Identification of Places
The identification of places is less sure than in many counties. Many places share the same Domesday name-form, and many are entered in other counties, due to extensive modern boundary changes. Serious study begins with Dugdale, Antiquities of Warwickshire (1656), far in advance of its time, but written before modern philology developed. VCH Warwickshire, i (1904) often printed Dugdale's identifications, adding query marks and footnotes, by Round or the translator, doubting or rejecting them. The Place-Names of Warwickshire (1936) and the Domesday Gazetteer sometimes repeat them without the doubts and queries. Most are straightforward, but others require a fuller study of the evidence, which this edition [Phillimore printed edition] cannot undertake. A few problems are discussed below, beginning with places that share the same name (JRM).

The COMPTONS. There are six Warwickshire Comptons and nine Domesday entries. Seven entries and four places are clearly identified: Verney Compton and Fenny Compton, 10 hides each, are the only Comptons in their hundreds; Long Compton (30 hides) was held by Geoffrey de Mandeville's heirs; Little Compton, 12 hides (GLS 20,1) was in Gloucestershire (in Deerhurst Hundred) until 1844. Compton Wynyates is in "Fexhole" Hundred, where Domesday enters no Compton; there are no grounds for inserting a relevant heading. One place Compton Scorpion, and two entries, Robert of Stafford's 5 hides at parua Contone and 1 hide at Contone (22,17-18), are less easily identified. VCH Warwickshire. i. p. 312, followed by Place-Names of Warwickshire, p. 279, and Domesday Gazetteer, suggested Compton Wynyates for the 1 hide, without noticing that it was in the wrong hundred, to which Place-Names of Warwickshire, addenda, drew attention. Round firmly rejected the identification (VCH Warwickshire, i. p. 329), since Wynyates was a Warwick, not a Stafford, holding; the Stafford lordship of Wynyates adduced in VCH Warwickshire. v. p. 65, is first recorded in 1386, after Earl Hugh of Stafford had married the Earl of Warwick's daughter; it may have been acquired through marriage. Whatever its location, parua Contone means 'Little Compton', and is so translated here. The most likely explanation is that Little Compton was divided between Deerhurst and Stafford, Stafford's 5 hides later transferred to his adjoining holding of Barton, to which Domesday gives the disproportionately small assessment of half a hide. 22,18 should therefore be Compton Scorpion, or possibly a lost Compton.

The MARSTONS.  Six places and seven entries. Butler's Marston and Marston Jabbett are the only Marstons in their hundreds, and Long Marston (GLS 15,1) was in Gloucestershire until 1931. In Coleshill Hundred, 17,10, listed between Mackadown and Elmdon, survives as Marston Green and Marston Hall, on the northern edge of Birmingham airport. Robert the bursar's 10 hides, held by his heirs, were at Lea Marston [23,1;3], two adjoining places amalgamated in the fourteenth century (Place-Names of Warwickshire, p. 84). Robert d'Oilly bought two Marston hides in Coleshill Hundred (21,1), and held another, whose hundred is uncertain (see 17,48 Coleshill note) from Thorkil, whose father had bought land in Lea Marston. He may well have bought land that adjoined his holding, more probably at Lea Marston than Marston Green. Marston-on-Avon, doubtfully suggested for 17,48 by VCH Warwickshire. i. p. 323, was claimed as a Coventry holding (Kemble, Codex Diplomaticus, nos. 916, 939 [= Sawyer, Anglo-Saxon Charters, nos. 1000, 1226]), not named in Domesday. 

The NEWBOLDS.  Newbold Comyn and Newbold Pacey are the only Newbolds in their hundreds. In Brinklow, Domesday distinguishes 'Fenny Newbold' (now Newbold Revel: Place-Names of Warwickshire, p. 120) from Newbold-on-Avon.

The OVERS. The River Over, now Swift, runs south from Leicestershire to the River Avon, opposite Rugby, and names the places on its banks. The 10-hide and 5-hide holdings are probably Churchover (14,5. 17,46. 22,1) and Cestersover (31,10). Opposite Brownsover (31,9), 2 hides, named from its 1086 holder, is Newbold-on-Avon (31,2), with 8 hides; it may be that Geoffrey of La Guerche, who inherited both places from Leofwin, detached 2 hides from a 5-hide or 10-hide place for his man, Brun. The one hide of NTH 36,4 is not identified; its name places it on the Over; a possible location is Harborough Fields (SP5080), opposite Churchover, since no right-bank Over name survives south of Cestersover, and Domesday gives 8 ½ hides to Harborough.

The WHITACRES. VCH Warwickshire. i. p. 319, points out that Witecore (17,14. 24,2), 2 ½ hides, is larger than Witacre (18,16. NTH 19,3), 1 hide, and that Nether Whitacre is larger than Over Whitacre (JRM).

State of Revision
Warwickshire was published in the Phillimore series in 1976. It was edited by John Morris, the originator of the series, from a draft translation prepared by Julie Plaister. The map was the work of Tony King. 
	The present edition is part of a project to convert the annotation of the Phillimore printed volumes to electronic form and to revise them. For Warwickshire, this small-scale revision is essentially an interim edition until time is available for a full-scale re-edition. For the present purpose only a limited number of changes have been made to the printed notes:
•	The translation of some terms has been brought into line with those of the series as a whole.
•	The bibliographical and other conventions have been changed to align them with the other counties that have been revised for the current project.
•	Certain changes have been necessary in the conversion of the notes to a searchable electronic version, such as to the lead words for the notes, to cross-references and to punctuation. 
•	A new section has been added on the County Boundary.
•	 The form of the hundred names has been standardized so as to distinguish between those units that are named from places still extant and those that are not.
•	The identification of a few places has been changed as a result of Frank Thorn's work for the Alecto edition. Justification of these changes will be included in the full re-edition of this county.
•	The spelling of place-names has been checked against the latest Ordnance Survey 1;25,000 maps. Larger scale maps have been used for places not recorded on the 1:25,000 maps.
•	A number of the forms of personal names have been changed as part of an ongoing process to bring more consistency to the entire name stock of Domesday Book. 
•	Some of the people have been further identified. When the identification comes from the person's occurrence in other documents or in other Domesday counties, this is shown in the translation between asterisks within square brackets. Where there is no documentary evidence for the identity of an individual, but it seems likely that a number of persons with the same first name are one and the same, this has been indicated in the translation by putting the name of one of the estates held by that person between < >. In this county the notes to justify both these forms of identification have largely been written by John Palmer and these have been attributed to him as (JP) put at the end of his paragraph.
•	Obvious typographical errors in the Phillimore printed notes have been corrected.

John Morris' notes were originally in three sections: the text, the translation and places. They have been merged into a single sequence and have been, in every case, attributed to him (JRM). Notes that are unsigned are by the present editors; where significant material has been added by them within a JRM note it has been placed within square brackets.

Caroline Thorn
Frank Thorn
December 2006
June 2007