Terriers and the historical geographer

Terriers were surveys of the sources, chiefly land or `gleeb', owned by each ecclesiastical parish in England and Wales. Their purpose was to prevent theft. They were first ordered in 1604, though earlier examples survive. Thereafter bishops commonly called for the presentation of a terrier on the occasion of their visitation of the parishes of their dioceses. Most dioceses thus have ‘sets’ of terriers, each relating to a particular visitation. Sets survive from the early seventeenth century to the eighteenth. Thereafter their compilation was more random. Despite loss and damage, they present a very detailed picture of rural and tenurial conditions. They also contain data on crops and field systems, as well as of parsonages (vernacular architecture), place-names and the personal names of parishioners. There are some urban terriers, but in the absence of agricultural land, they are very much less informative. An Appendix presents a guide to the present location of surviving terriers.