The Norman Conquest
In 1066, Tutbury was in the hands of Edwin, Earl of Mercia, brother-in-law of King Harold of England. He didn't fight at the Battle of Hastings. He did resist the Norman invasion but surrendered in January 1067. Incidentally, we've talked about these waves of invaders - Romans, Saxons, Vikings, Normans - but its interesting to note that until this time, there were remnants of the Celtic people, the original Ancient Britons, living in Needwood Forest - and they spoke Welsh. The Norman Invasion was the last straw and they took refuge in the coal mines!
So,
William the Conqueror had a nice new kingdom and doled out goodies to all
the Norman nobles who helped him with the invasion. He gave Tutbury to one
of his close personal friends and advisors - a chap called Henry de Ferrers.
(His ancestors had been farriers - shoers of horses, hence the name. Ferrum
is Latin for iron - we refer to ferrous metal, the chemical symbol is Fe,
and the French call a railway a 'Chemin de Fer' - way of iron. His coat
of arms at this time contained pictures of horseshoes).
King William gave him a good deal more than just Tutbury - altogether he held 200 Lordships throughout the Midlands, mostly in Derbyshire but also in Nottinghamshire and Staffordshire. Of all these possessions he chose Tutbury as his headquarters and strengthened it both politically and militarily.
One of the first things King William did, quite reasonably, was to have a map made of his new kingdom. A quick survey to identify for him the most important places, so there are only 20 towns marked such as London, Winchester, York, Chester, Bristol, Lincoln, Durham, Rochester …. and Tutbury is one of them. The next thing he did, having got the lie of the land, was to find out how much it was worth – so he commissioned the Domesday Book, just about the first economic survey of the country. It was called the Domesday Book because people thought it would take until doomsday to complete, it was such an enormous task - nothing on this scale had been tackled before. Henry de Ferrers was one of the Commissioners.
Tutbury's entry in the Domesday Book is surprisingly brief but then so are most entries in it - the King was simply interested in where is it? Even though it's short we can learn quite a lot. It reads:
"Henry de Ferrers has the Castle at Toteberie. (this would be a wooden one put up swiftly after the invasion). In the town about the castle are forty-two men who live only by merchandise (this suggests quite a sizable and prosperous population - these 42 were full-time professional shopkeepers, not farmers who sold their produce - there must have been a fair population to keep them all in business). They pay, together with the market, four pounds, ten shillings. This is the first reference to Tutbury Market.
The next bit has confused scholars. It reads:
"In Burton he has half a hide (a hide is a measure of land, between 60 and 120 acres - they weren't very precise in measurement in those days) in which is seated his castle, with which, in the time of Edward the Confessor, there were twelve cerucates; there are now four cerucates in demesne. It is worth 24 shillings a year."
- Carucate is the Danish equivalent of a hide. The land ploughed by eight oxen; the actual area varied locally and like the hide could be reassessed.
- Demesne is land devoted to the Lord's profit, whether a manor, or a portion of land within a manor, worked by peasants as part of their obligations.
This doesn't tally with the other known facts - there wasn't a castle at Burton for example. It is thought that the clerk transcribing the details has confused Burgo (meaning town) with Burton and that this entry really applies to Tutbury.
Reading this in conjunction with the other entries for Staffordshire, we can learn some more. Tutbury is one of only three 'burghs' in the county (a burgh was a particularly important town); it is the only place in Staffordshire with a market and one of four in the Midlands - a critical element of the medieval economy.
It is one of only three places in Staffordshire with a castle and the population was probably 200 or so. So we get a fairly good picture of Tutbury at the end of the 11th century.
It has been the seat of Saxon Kings and is now held by one of the chief Norman noblemen who has chosen it as his headquarters.
It has a fair sized, prosperous population, a castle and a market. It also had a church and a cornmill. (The church isn't entered in the book as it paid no rent and the mill is in the Rolleston entry because the Parish boundary was on this side of it - soon after, the boundary moved so that the mill came directly under his control).