The Saxon land system has now been examined. No feature has been found to be more marked and general than its universally manorial character; that is to say, the Saxon 'ham' or 'tun' was an estate or manor with a village community in villenage upon it. And the services of the villein tenants were of a uniform and clearly defined type; they consisted of the combination of two distinct things--fixed _gafol_ payments in money, in kind, or in labour, and the more servile _week-work_. It is needful now to examine the land system beyond the border of Saxon conquest. A good opportunity of doing this occurs in the Domesday Survey. The Tidenham manor has already been examined. It afforded a singularly useful example of the Saxon system. Its geographical position, at the extreme south-west corner of England, on the side of Wales, enabled us to trace its history from its probable conquest in 577, or soon after, and to conclude that it remained Saxon from that time to the date of [p182] the Survey; and distinctly manorial was found to be the character of its holdings and services. «West side of the Wye.» Now, the neighbouring land, on the west side of the Wye, was equally remarkable in its geographical position. For as long as Tidenham had been the extreme south-west corner of England, so long had the neighbouring land between the Wye and the Usk been the extreme south-east corner of unconquered Wales. «Gwent.» «Remained Welsh till conquered by Harold.» It was part of the district of _Gwent_, and it seems to have remained in the hands of the Welsh till Harold conquered it from the Welsh king Gruffydd, a few years only before the Norman Conquest. Harold seems to have annexed whatever he conquered between the Wye and the Usk--_i.e._ in Gwent--to his earldom of Hereford; and after the Norman Conquest it fell into the hands of William FitzOsborn, created by William the Conqueror Earl of Hereford and Lord of Gwent.[203] It was he[204] who built at Chepstow the Castle of _Estrighoiel_, the ruins of which still stand on the west bank of the Wye, opposite Tidenham. His son, Roger FitzOsbern, succeeded to the earldom of Hereford and the lordship of Gwent; and, upon his rebellion [p183] and imprisonment, this region of Wales became _terra regis_, and as such is described in the Domesday Survey, mostly as a sort of annexe to Gloucestershire,[205] but partly as belonging to the county of Hereford.[206] «So also the district of Archenfield.»