A Steeple Claydons’ History
THE MIDDLE AGES
The earliest surviving document to mention Claydon by name is Domesday Book (1086). Free translation of the Claydon entry follows: ‘ Alaric the cook holds Claindone from the King [William the Conqueror]. Hitherto it has been assessed [for the Dane geld] at 20 hides [2,400 acres]. There are 5 hides [600 acres] of demesne [the Lord of the Manor’s home farm] with 5 ploughs. in addition 50 villeins [ small farmers paying rent in services on the demesne instead of in money] and 3 cottages have 19 ploughs between them. There are 7 slaves, and enough meadow to feed 4 plough-teams [ 32 . oxen] and enough woodland for 100 pigs. In all _it is now worth £16, as it, ·as in King Edward’s [the Confessor’s) time; when received [in 1066] it was worth £11. Queen Eddid [Edith, wife of Edward the Confessor and sister of his successor, Harold] used to hold this manor.’Claydons drop in value from £16 to £11 is probably to be explained by the destruction caused by William the Conqueror’s army on its circuitous march on London after the Battle of Hastings. lf the agricultural statistics are correct at least three quarters of the parish must have been arable and the woodland (at the southern end of the parish) cannot have been much more extensive than it is to-day. The total population was probably about 360 souls.
Nothing is known of Alric; he was perhaps Queen Edith’s cook and had received Claydon as a reward for his culinary services. Edith was a keen church builder and Claydon Church may have been erected at her expense. There was certainly a church in Claydo1i in 1129, and as the village is referred to as Stcpelclaendon about 1218 a steeple or tower must have been in existence by that date. Nothing, however is left of the old church. The chancel, the oldest part of the present church, dates from about 1380 . Aftcr Alric ‘s death the manor reverted to the King, and Henry I g:avc it to Edith Forn, a former mistress of his, on her marriage to a Norman nobleman called Robert Doily. Later Edith and Robert founded Oseney Abbey in Oxford, which they endowed with several churches, including Claydon’s. This meant that the Bishop of Oseney became the Rector of Claydon and received the tithes due from the parish. On Robert’s death Edith presentcd Oseney Abbey with 4 hides of land in Claydon, and her grandson Henry (who was Henry II ‘s Constable) and other benefactors later made further grants of land in Claydon to the Abbey, all of which camc to be known as the Rectory Manor and remained in the hands of Oseney Abbey until its dissolution by Henry VIII.
The relevant documents, some forty charters dating from about 1150 to 1281, have now been printed by the Oxford Historical Society and incidentally these Oseney Charters provide a good deal of information about the early history of Claydon. Thus we learn that all legal transactions at that time took place in St Michael’s Church in the presence of the whole parish.
