Note 2 — PART I TERRITORIAL STUDIES

Comprising the whole of Gosecote Wapentake, and in part those of Framland and Gartree, it retains for these divisions the Domesday name of Wapentake—they are now 'Hundreds'—while subdividing them into small 'Hundreds', of which the existence seems to have been hitherto unsuspected. Proceeding, like the I.C.C., 'Hundred' by 'Hundred', and Vill by Vill, it enables us, like that document, to reconstitute the aggregate assessments, and thus affords priceless evidence on 'the six-carucate unit'.2 But apart from this, it is invested with no small importance from that 'great want of documentary evidence' for the reign of Henry I which Mr Hunter rightly lamented in his elaborate introduction to the first great roll of the Pipe (p. ii). It affords us new and trustworthy evidence on the many vicissitudes of the great fiefs, and enables us, while tracing the fortunes of their owners, to see how the first Henry provided for his novi homines, showering escheats and royal demesne on the trusty officials he had raised 'from the dust', as well as on his favourite nephew, Stephen, Count of Mortain.