Rebellion In Exeter 1067

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Medieval Resources - Rebellion In Exeter 1067

The centre of the revolt in the west was Exeter, the first city in the kingdom to dare to oppose William. This was partly because it was home to Gytha, King Harold's mother.
The high taxes being demanded by Norman landlords seems also to have played a part. The people of the city insisted their tribute to the queen and sheriff must stay the same at £18.
The furious William reached the city in March 1068. A delegation of leading citizens met him some miles from the town but he arrived to find the gates firmly shut.
He had one of his hostages publicly blinded to terrify the watching populace and then besieged Exeter for 18 days. The city people put up stern resistance and William's army suffered heavy casualties.
Eventually, the city leaders asked for peace and William, impressed by the strength of the city's defences agreed. Gytha Godwine was allowed to sail off into exile.
William did, however, take steps to ensure Exeter would be obedient in the future.

On the hill the Normans called Rougemont because of the red earth, he built an inevitable castle with an imposing gatehouse which can still be seen today. Around 48 houses may have had to be demolished to accommodate the fortress.
As for the gatehouse, it is said to have the oldest military stone arch in England and once had a drawbridge over a defensive ditch.
Exeter and the surviving motte and bailey castle built at Oakhampton were left in the charge of William's henchman Baldwin de Redvers, whom he made sheriff of Devon.
The name Baldwin suggests that this man was one of the king's Flemish allies - as was the founding father of the Acland family, later owners of Killerton but who first settled at Landkey in North Devon.

Domesday Book 1086/1087

This comprehensive record of England and its people was made at the behest of William the Conqueror and is based on surveys of land ownership taken around all the counties.
In Exeter is the only surviving local record, Exon Domesday, and has been kept at the cathedral for all of its life. This unique document is housed in a strongly secured bullet-proof cabinet in the cathedral library.
It is written in the abbreviated Latin of the time but is perfectly clear and can be easily translated.
It is an earlier and more complete record of life in the five south-western counties than the great Domesday itself.

At the time of Domesday (1086), about one fifth of the population of England lived in the uplands - 20,000 families. The land contained few villages but many tiny hamlets and thousand of isolated farmsteads. These settlements kept livestock on the pastures and hand-tilled small fields.
The Exon Domesday gives a detailed account of some 9-10,000 farms in Devon, of which perhaps 8,500 were tiny outliers occupied and worked by the poorest people.
In addition, the book gives about 1,200 separate manors with a lord's farm.
Of these, around 4,667 smallholders had nothing more than plots.

1067 - Rebellion In Exeter - William the Conqueror besieges the town - Rougemont Castle built.

1088-87 - Exeter has its own Domesday book taken from winchester and been in Exeter catherdral ever since.


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