EFL - Enciclopedia delle Famiglie Lombarde

Stava a Dudley, nello Staffordshire. '''http://www.localhistory.sci t.wlv.ac.uk/articles/Penn/history/Normans.htm''' As the country settl ed down under Norman rule, King William wanted to ensure that he recei ved all of the taxes that were owed to him. This was very complex beca use the country had been divided into a large number of tax paying man ors. The solution was the Domesday Book and work on it began in 1085 w hen teams of investigators toured the country. The information gathere d from all over the country was collated into the book at Winchester a nd from this precise taxes could be calculated. When a team of invest igators arrived in an area they would meet with the landowner, the loc al priest and a group of older villagers. The information gathered wa s as follows: The name of each tenant-in-chief, tenant and under-tena nt, the total amount of land, the amount of land under cultivation, th e amount of woodland, the number of people, animals and ploughs and an y fishponds or mills. The Domesday Book was not completed until afte r King William’s death on 9th September 1087. Today it is the most i mportant source of information about village life in the Middle Ages . The entries for Penn [presso Birmingham] are as follows: Upper Pen n, called “Penna”: William Fitzansculph holds Upper Penn. There a re 5 hides. Robert (his vassal) holds it from him. Earl Algar held it . There is land for 6 ploughs. In the lordship, 1 plough with one slav e. There are 8 villagers and two smallholders with 1 plough. There i s a mill worth 2 shillings. The value was and is 30 shillings. Lowe r Penn, called “Penne”: William Fitzansculph owns it. There ar e 3 hides. Gilbert (his vassal) holds it from him. Countess Godiva hel d them. There is land for 6 ploughs. In the lordship land for one. The re are 6 villagers with one freeman. They have one and a half ploughs . There are four acres of meadow. Lower Penn is valued at twenty shill ings for taxable purposes. A view of the 13th and 14th century kee p at Dudley Castle from an old postcard. The later castle is on the s ite of William Fitzansculph's home. At that time Penn was no more tha n a tiny hamlet with no wealthy people living there. Upper Penn wa s a little larger and more valuable than Lower Penn. The mill mention ed in Upper Penn would be a watermill because windmills did not appea r in England until the 12th century. The most logical place to find su ch a mill would have been at the bottom of Penn Common. So maybe ther e was an 11th century watermill near to the present day Wodehouse Mill . The owner of Penn, William Fitzansculph was Ansculf’s son and wo uld have inherited his father’s land and possessions on his death, w hich must have been sometime before 1085. Ansculf was in control of mo re than 80 manors, scattered across several counties and like his fath er William was based at Dudley Castle. Very little remains of the 11t h century buildings, most of what we see today dates from the 14th cen tury. William Fitzansculph’s holdings included Amblecote, Aston, Bi rmingham, Bushbury, Chasepool, Dudley, Edgbaston, Enville, Erdington , Essington, Great Barr, Handsworth, Himley, Moseley, Newport Pagnell , Orton, Oxley, Pendeford, Perry Barr, Sedgley, Seisdon, Trysull, Wit ton, Wombourne, and Upper Penn and Lower Penn. William’s tenant a t Upper Penn was Robert, who was also tenant at some of William’s ot her holdings, including Bushbury, Ettingshall, Moseley and Oxley. Hi s tenant at Lower Penn was Gilbert. By the end of the 11th century Pe nn was firmly on the map as a small farming community, just as parts o f it still are today.