MANOR, VILL, AND HUNDRED: RURAL DEVELOPMENT IN THE REGION OF MICHELDEVER, HAMPSHIRE, 700-1100 (ENGLAND, WESSEX, ANGLO-SAXON)

The thesis of this study is that during the period 700-1100, in the southern English kingdom of Wessex, a tribal society was transformed into a medieval 'feudal' society, and the accompanying change in rural institutions was from pagan, tribal valley districts called here 'proto-hundreds', to the medieval manor, vill, and hundred.;The investigation centered upon a specific area, Micheldever Hundred, an administrative district of Micheldever, north of Winchester in central Hampshire. It followed a multi-disciplinary approach, using the documentary evidence of Anglo-Saxon charters and later medieval manorial records, and the supplemental evidence from place-name studies and archaeology. The Domesday Book was a valuable source of information on the late Saxon economy and land units, but it was found that entries could not always be reliably compared because survey teams used differing criteria. The first goal of the study was to reconstruct the settlements, their territories, and their land-use, in the Dever valley. Early medieval rural development in England had not before been worked out for an area as large as the twenty square mile Micheldever region. The secondary goal was to trace the early medieval territorial divisions and administrative districts at Micheldever, and to extend the resulting pattern to north and central Hampshire, an area larger than previous studies of local territorial units had examined.;The ancient tribal districts were found to be identical to valley catchment zones. Centers of these 'proto-hundreds' had major pagan cemeteries, early place-names, and pre-Viking minsters; they later became hundred centers and royal vills. Micheldever was one such center, and its valley was a proto-hundred. The formation of villages there corresponds to the eighth and ninth century shift toward cooperative agriculture, with large ploughteams and common fields. The proto-hundreds fragmented as individual manors were created.;In the late Saxon period, new great estates were formed out of individual holdings, but overall, manorial holdings continued to decrease in size, eventually reaching the later medieval small fractions of knights' fees. Early medieval manorial evolution was not a single process of disintegration; great estates were formed and fragmented throughout the period. In rural development, the emphasis was more of continuity than abrupt change. The great change in rural life had taken place before the Conquest.