mentioned forty-two hides. Here are six plough-lands. Four of the hides are in demesne, where are three ploughlands. The whole of Bradeford with its appendages was and is valued at sixty pounds." There are also to be found under the head of 'Lands of Odo and other Thanes who hold by military service under the King,' several entries, which seem to have reference to our parish, though it is difficult in some instances to identify with anything like certainty the places alluded to. Thus, Brictric is said to hold one hide in Trole1;-Vlf one hide in Bode-berie3; -Uluric three yard lands in Wintreslie3 and one yard land in Tuder-lege:-Ulward four hides in Wintreslie. In this same record, CUMBERWELL5 is mentioned, in Cap. xxvii., under the lands of Humphrey de L'Isle, the Lord also of Broughton and of Castle Combe. In § 5 it is said,— Two villagers Here are four "Pagen holds Cumbrewelle of Humphrey. Levenot held it in the time of King Edward and it was assessed at four hides. Here are five ploughlands. Two plough-lands and a servant are in demesne. and four borderers occupy the other three plough-lands. acres of meadow and five acres of wood. It is valued at three pounds. The King has one hide of this manor in demesne where there is no land in tillage. And an Englishman holds half of it of the King, which is worth eight shillings." It is not easy, for many reasons, to draw any very accurate conclusions from these entries in Domesday Book. If we presume that the first extract gives us a general summary of the whole parish, we have returned as arable land nearly 5000 acres, for such would be the extent of the 'forty plough-lands' (carucate) mentioned. If Cumberwell be not included in this summary, and as it is so specifically mentioned, it may be reckoned separately, there will be an addition to this estimate of 'five plough-lands' more, or some 600 acres. In the former case there would be more than two.fifths, in the latter about half the land under the plough. Taking even the lesser calculation it gives us a large proportion of arable land in the 18 4. This is now Trowle; but as part of what is so called belongs to Trowbridge parish, it is impossible to assign the hide of land held, as above, to Bradford with certainty. 28 59. Conjectured to mean Bud-bury. 3§ 61. Winsley, see above, page 14. parish, and one much above the average. It may perhaps be accounted for by the fact that it was Church land. For as Turner remarks, "The Domesday Survey gives us some indications that the cultivation of the Church lands, was much superior to that of any other order of society. They have much less wood upon them, and less common of pasture; and what they had appears often in smaller and more irregular pieces; while their meadow was more abundant, and in more numerous distributions."1 The meadow and pasture land is reckoned at about four hundred acres; the wood at about one hundred and forty acres. The small amount of the former is perhaps accounted for by the fact of there being in these early times a very large portion of common land unenclosed and uncultivated, which is not included in the Domesdary reckoning. The latter calculation may relate principally, if not entirely, to what is now called Bradford Wood, and does not include many pieces of wood-land and coppice, that even to this day remain. If so, Bradford Wood, which is now seventy acres in extent, must formerly have been double that size, by no means an improbable supposition, as, in a survey of 1785 it is described as "about 105 acres," and within the memory of many now living, parts of it have been grubbed up and tilled. Indeed, nothing is more evident than that in olden times there was a much larger extent of wood-land than now. This is true of comparatively modern days. In a schedule of lands and tenements leased out under the manor in the eighth year of Charles I., hardly more than 200 years ago, there was one tenement described as being in "Pepitt street, near Bradford wood." The wood alluded to must have come right down almost into the middle of the town.2 1' History of Anglo-Saxons,' vol. ii. p. 552 (8vo edition, 1836.) See also on this subject Hallam's 'Europe in the Middle Ages,' vol. iii. p. 360. 2In 1840, the estimated quantity of land then cultivated as arable, meadow or pasture land, or as wood-land, or common land, was as follows: We may from the Domesday return, form a tolerable conjecture as to the population of our parish, or manor, as it would have been called in these early days. Reckoning those named as resident at Cumberwell, and assuming, in addition to those specifically mentioned, a man for every mill, pasture, house, &c., (the plan adopted by Rickman and Turner,) we have enumerated in all some 175 persons in various employments. Supposing these numbers to have reference to the heads of families only, and taking four as the average of a family, it would give us a population of about 700. Many of these would, of course, live near the lands which they cultivated, so that the population of the town could hardly have been more than from three to four hundred at the most.1 FROM A.D. 1100-1300. We know as yet very little of the history of Bradford for the two centuries immediately succeeding the Norman Conquest. Our neighbourhood was the scene of frequent and deadly conflicts, and, no doubt shared in some of the misery that abounded on every side during the reigns of William Rufus, Henry I., and Stephen. In the reign of the last named king it was that the sound of war was heard almost within our borders, for after obtaining possession of the castles of Salisbury, Malmsbury, and Devizes, Stephen himself laid siege to the Castle of Trowbridge, then belonging to Humphrey de Bohun, a partizan of the Empress Matilda, but retired after several unsuccessful attempts to take it. The fact of a large Church having been built in Bradford about the middle of the twelfth century, would seem to imply increasing wealth and Since that time, however, 201 acres of common land have been enclosed and brought into cultivation. [And since 1840, a good deal of arable land has been converted into pasture.] 1The whole number of heads of families in Wiltshire, according to Domesday, is 10,749. This, according to the calculation above, would give a total population of about 42,000 souls. See Turner's 'Anglo-Saxons,' vol. iii. p. 255. [It is probably too small a multiplier.] 2 William of Malmesbury's Chronicle, (A.D. 1139.) population, and a comparative immunity from those desolating scourges with which other parts of the country were visited. With reference to the Church, we will for the present only state, that the oldest part of it, which no doubt formed the original building, consists of a Chancel (about two-thirds the length of the present one) some 34 feet long, and a Nave a little more then twice the length of the Chancel, both of them being of a proportionate width, built in the Norman style of architecture. Though the Norman features have been for the most part obliterated, yet in the buttresses on the south side of the building, and in the outlines of the old windows in the Chancel, and also in one part of the south wall of the Nave, (though the last has long since been blocked up with masonry), you can detect sufficient indications of the probable age of the Church. And yet the few glimpses that we have been able to gain of the state of Bradford in these early days, do not disclose a condition of much peace and security. In the time of Richard I. (about A.D. 1190), we find the Hundred of Bradford "in misericordia" as it is was termed,-that is, placed at the mercy of the king and liable to a heavy amerciament,'1 or fine, in consequence of the murder of a woman named Eva within their boundaries. To escape the penalty they were obliged to put in proof of Engleceria, that is, evidence that the party slain was of English and not foreign descent. This was in pursuance of a law enacted originally by Canute, in order to 1 Amerciament, (from the French merci) signifies the pecuniary punishment of an offender against the king or other lord in his court, that is found to be in misericordiâ i.e. to have offended. and to stand at the mercy of the king or lord. Jacob's Law Dictionary.' In the records of Court Leet, any one fined for any offence, is said to be ‘in mercy' to the amount of the penalty inflicted. 2 Engleceria Angl. Englecery or Engleshire:— :—an old word, signifying the being an Englishman. Where any person was murdered he was adjudged to be Francigena, that is a foreigner, unless it was proved otherwise. The manner of proving the person killed to be an Englishman, was by two witnesses, who knew the father and mother, before the coroner. By reason of the great abuses and trouble that afterwards grew by it, this Englecery was taken away by Stat. 14 Edward III., s. 1. c. 4. Jacob's 'Law Dictionary.' put a stop to the frequent murders of the Danes, the purport of which was, that if an Englishman killed a Dane, he should be tried for the murder, or, if he escaped, the town or hundred where the deed was committed should be amerced sixty-six marks to the king. In the present instance, a woman named Agatha was charged with the murder by the father and mother of the deceased woman, and imprisoned at Sarum. Thence she subsequently escaped with other prisoners, the "Earl John" having "broken open the prison" and so liberated the captives.1 Indeed, it must have been but on a preearious tenure that, in these early days, the Abbess of Shaftesbury held her possessions in Bradford. More than once she seems to have been deprived of them, no doubt in order that her revenues might supply the need of the reigning monarch. The charters by which they are confirmed to the Abbess, one by Stephen and another by John, Kings of England, allude to a claim having been put forth by Emma, Abbess at the commencement of the twelfth century, "in the presence of King Henry and his barons" to sundry possessions, amongst which were reckoned those "at Bradford and Budbery." And the expressions of the charters imply an acknowledgment of the justice of the claim. The charter of confirmation by King John was granted May 23, 1205, in the seventh year of his reign.2 1 Abbreviatio Placitorum. "Hundred de Bradeford in misericordiâ. In villa de Bradeford fuit quædam fæmina occisa Eva nomine et Agatha fuit capta per appellum matris et patris mortuæ et incarcerata apud Sarum. Et quando Comes Johannes fregit gaolam tunc evasit cum aliis prisonibus et nunquam post fuit visa, Engleceria fuit presentata ad terminum." The Comes Johannes' was, it was conceived, afterwards King John, who during his brother Richard's absence in the Holy Land seized several of his castles, and sought to obtain for himself the supreme authority. In this same record, from which we have just quoted, we find also the following entry of the same date: "Walterus de Chaudefield appellavit Nicholaum et Willielmum quod assultaverunt eum in pace Domini Regis &c." Such records, brief as they are, do not imply an over peaceable state of things at Bradford in the reign of Richard I. 2 See Monastic. Anglic. ii. 482, where both these charters are given, One is almost a counterpart of the other. "Sciatis nos intuitu justitiæ et amore Dei concessisse simul et reddidisse Deo et Ecclesiæ S. Mariæ et |