Yateley & the Domesday Book
The latest translation of the Domesday Book for Hampshire (1982) has substituted Heckfield for the entry which was previously believed to refer to Yateley. GH Stilwell, in his History of Yateley (ca. 1925 ed. Loader ca.1975), followed Victorian scholars' opinion that the Domesday entry referred to Yateley, and gives us the original Latin, and a translation:
Ipse Hugo tenet Effelle, Stenesnoc de rege Edwardo tenuit in alodium. Tunc et modo geldavit pro ii hidii. Terra est V carucatoe. In dominio est una; et XIV villani et viiibordarii cum ix carucatis, Ibi ecclesia et ii servi et molinus de V solidis et piscaria de C anguillis et iii acrae prati. Silva de C porcis. Tempore Regis Edwardi et post valebat C solidis modo vi libra, et tamen reddit viii libras.(1)
Translation-
Hugh de Port holds Yateley and Stenesnoc held it allodially of King Edward, It was then as now assessed at two hides, Here are five ploughlands, one in demesne, and fourteen yeomen and eight cottages with nine ploughlands. A church there is and two serfs, and a mill worth five shillings, and fishponds furnishing one hundred eels, three acres of pasture land, and a wood for one hundred hogs {pannage }. Its value in the time of King Edward and afterwards was one hundred shillings, and now it is six pounds, but nevertheless pays eight pounds.
The argument, Yateley or Heckfield, was already raging in Stilwell's day. Although scholars were generally agreed it was Yateley, Sir William Cope, who owned Bramshill, asserted that Effelle was Heckfield. Stilwell retorted that we know that the Saxon name of the latter was Heggefeld.
The editors of the 1982 Domesday edition agree with Sir William's argument that Effelle must be Heckfield since the de Port family held Heckfield later. But land-holdings could be temporary, or even confused by the Domesday assessors.
There are fewer than 20 fisheries listed in the Hampshire Domesday and Effelle is a significant one of them. Half of the other fisheries were on the Wiltshire Avon. Effelle was unique in northeast Hampshire.
The supporters of Heckfield must therefore show that fish-farming was flourishing there in the Middle Ages -- as it appears to be 200 years later in Yateley. But if we can prove from documentary sources that Effelle was Yateley, or indeed only part of its ancient area of taxation, then that fact would support the hypothesis that Yateley's mediæval taxation was high because of extensive fish-farming.
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