Note 309 — BOOK III.

Four manuscripts read Exoniam, and one, namely, that which was used by Savile, read Oxoniam. But Matthew Paris also seems to have read Exoniam, for such is the text of the two best MSS. of that author. (Reg. 14, c. vii. and Cott. Nero, D. V.) Upon a passage in the Domesday Survey, describing Oxford as containing 478 houses, which were so desolated that they could not pay gold, Sir H. Ellis remarks: “The extraordinary number of houses specified as desolated at Oxford, requires explanation. If the passage is correct, Matthew Paris probably gives us the cause of it, under the year 1067, when William the Conqueror subdued Oxford in his way to York:—‘Eodem tempore rex Willielmus urbem Oxoniam sibi rebellem obsidione vallavit. Super cujus murum quidam, stans, nudato inguine, sonitu partis inferioris auras turbavit, in contemptum videlicet Normannorum; unde Willielmus in iram conversus, civitatem levi negotio subjugavit.’ (Matt. P. ed. Watts, sub ann. 1067, p. 4.) The siege of Exeter in 1067 is also mentioned by Simeon of Durham, col. 197; Hoveden, col. 258; Ralph de Diceto, col. 482; Flor. of Worces. fol. Franc. 1601, p. 635; and by Ordericus Vitalis, p. 510.”—Hardy.