1086 AD - William, the son of the Lord Richard of Bremingehame

I was fishing in the River Rea one hot August afternoon when a little group of riders came down the slope from the forest. They had come from the wealthy village of Machiton which lies 5 miles to the east of us and is still ruled by one of those Saxons whom my father defeated at the Battle of Hastings. The riders were strangers- two men in priests robes and two guards in chainmail like fathers. They splashed through the ford. I greeted them in French which is the language all Normans speak. I know only a few Saxon words for ordering the servants to work. French will be the language of all educated people in England for the next 400 years. They asked the name of the village and wrote it on parchment. They referred to the absence of a watermill and then asked me to take them to the Lords house.

I felt important when I led them up the slope as my father is Lord of Bremingehame. There was a wide moat which Father had ordered to be dug on the site of the old Saxon ham. When Ansculf had given the small manor of Bremingehame to his faithful follower Richard, we had turned the villagers off the site and made them build cottages round a green higher up slope. The moat now defended our house along with the men at arms.

The manor had originally belonged to one of the Saxons - Ulwine, wealthy Sheriff of the Shire in the days of Edward the Confessor but after we took over William Fitz-Ansculf was given the Lordship of Dudley and many other manors which were taken from the Saxon thanes. Duke William was generous to Ansculf and my father because they had come with him from his home town of Caen in Normandy to fight for possession of England.

Father greeted the visitors at his gate, and nodded over the parchment bearing the Conquerors seal. It stated that they were surveyors for the Midland counties, and were recording all the land and taxable property. Lord Richard has not bothered to learn to read, but knew the kings seal. I wanted to look at the document because mother has been teaching me to read but I was ignored by the older men. As I served my fathers guests at table that night I listened to the surveyors telling tales of their travels. We never travel far and the next county seems like a foreign land to me, although three counties meet near Birmingham and people come to our ford to cross the River Rea.

They had been in Warwick recently, the fortress town on the River Avon, and had come through the great forest called Arden where settlements are few and small. They were glad to be in more open land. They had visited Olton Castle, and Gerlei (Yardley), as well as Machitone.

At Machitone they had written...............

From Turchil Alnod holds Machitone. There are 5 hides less 1 virgate. There is land for 5 ploughs. There are 10 villeins and 4 borders with 3 ploughs, and 2 acres of meadow. There is woodland 1 league long and half a league broad. It was worth 20 shillings, now worth 40 shillings.
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Turchil was a great landowner who was English (Saxon) but as he had not opposed Duke William he was allowed to keep his lands. Alnod was a Saxon who had held his lands for many years. Hides & virgates were areas of land. Virgate = 25 acres, hide = 100 acres. Villeins & bordars were farmers. The villein usually worked at least 30 acres and could be self supporting while the bordar worked less land and would have had to do other work to supplement his own production.

As the value of doubled between 1066 and 1086 Machitone was obviously an expanding village
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Father asked how they knew where the manors were as there were no maps or signposts ! The priests explained that guides and information were provided by villages like Machitone where the Lord said that if they were to be taxed, then so were the other local villages. Lord Richard told them about Aston and our other neighbours, including the royal manor of (Kings) Norton and its colony, Moseley.

Next day the surveyors were at work. They rode the bounds of the manor lands at least partway. They wrote everything down. They wrote ..........................

'Richard holds of William four hides in Bremingeham. The arable employs 6 ploughs. There are 5 villeins and 4 bordars with 2 ploughs. Wood half a league long and 2 furlongs broad. It was and is worth 20 shillings. Ulwin held it freely in the time of King Edward.'

They estimated the size of the manor to be about two and a half miles from East to West and one and a half from North to South. The wood was just over a mile wide by three quarters of a mile long. They discovered that only one sixth of the manor is used for crops - about 600 acres, 100 being demesne owned by my father as the lord. He has the best land near river. Heads of households were counted - 9 of these, none were free men, all owed work to the Lord as rent for their land, just as Father owed service as knight to his lord of Dudley.

Six plough teams work the fields of the manor, with 8 oxen in each team. Harvest is being gathered now, everyone is helping in the two great open fields and Father and his Reeve give the orders. The land is farmed in strips with grass baulks between them. The demesne has already been cropped as they do our land before their own. There is extra work for the villeins (farmers) at ploughing and harvest. Men work with scythes and sickles, the women and children gleaning.

Alric is a Saxon who has learnt a little of our language and he told me that he works 2 days each week for my father. He must also carry salt, fish and wood for our castle or pay for someone else to do the work for us.

The surveyors recorded no church - there wasn't one at Bremingehame but there is at Norton (later called Kings Norton) and they assessed our manor as being worth 20 shillings in tax. Aston was much larger and was worth five times as much. There was no reference to the flourishing smithies in the village.

The party left before evening. William had been delighted to be their guide. When he had taken them into the village he had heard of a crazy old man who claimed he could see into the future. As Will returned home he thought about what he had heard.

The old man believed that one day Bremingehame would grow and grow to make a gigantic village which would swallow up all the surrounding places. Will did not understand how this was possible as his village was tiny and unimportant and he had only ever seen villages of 100 or 200 people and could not imagine anything larger was possible. He was proud to be able to tell his mother the names of all their lands and of the surrounding villages. He could reel off a long list of names such as Yardley, Machitone, Northfield, Norton, Kings Heath, Washwood, Weoley, Selly, Aston, Eordington, Ecbaston, Harborne, Lea, Stickyford, Spark Hill, Bordeshalle and all the rest. The maid who looked after the clothes for his mother had told him the old man prophesied that more than 40 villages and hamlets would be swallowed.

He wished that he could see the future and he hoped that as soon as he was old enough to bear arms, he would be summoned by his Lord to wars in Wales or France where he would see other villages and even towns and cities as well.

Bremingehame seemed so small and dull!