Note 45 — PART I TERRITORIAL STUDIES (continued 2)

It is important to observe that, except for this survey, we should not even have known of the existence of these 'Hundreds' in Leicestershire. And when we compare the entry on our roll—'Framelaund Wap'. Hundredum de Calevertone. In eadem villa xii. car.'—with that in the Derbyshire Domesday: 'Morelestan Wepentac. Salle Hundred. In Salle et Draicot et Opewelle ... xii. car.' (i. 273), it is scarcely possible to resist the conclusion that, in this passage relating to Sawley, divided only by a river from Leicestershire, we have a glimpse of the same system existing in Derbyshire also. That is to say, that Sawley was not a 'Hundred' of twelve carucates,45 as has been suggested,46 but was the caput of a 'Hundred' similar to those of Leicestershire. I believe, indeed, that in our survey we see the system on which these counties were surveyed in 1086. The original returns will have been drawn up Wapentake by Wapentake, and 'Hundred' by 'Hundred'. But when transcribed into Domesday Book the entries were arranged under Wapentakes alone, and the headings of the 'Hundreds' omitted. In the case of Sawley alone the heading slipped in, immediately preceding the entry of the Manor, as it must have done on the original return. It is thus that I account for the mention of 'leets' slipping into the Norfolk Domesday, in two cases, from the original return;47 just as, in Cambridgeshire, the total assessments of Impington and Chatteris have slipped, from the original returns, into the Inq. Eliensis,48 though duly omitted in Domesday Book.