Mickleton is listed in the Domesday Book. The Domesday Book (Domesday, the book of the day of judgement) is a manuscript record of a great survey of much of England and parts of Wales that was completed in 1086 by order of King William the Conqueror. It describes in detail the landholdings and resources of the late 11th century, and records who held the land and how it was used. The Domesday entry for Mickleton - or Muceltude which is the Domesday place name for Mickleton and was written in Latin - illustrates three key features of the village:
The Manor and its rights are under the church,
It is an agricultural area under the plough,
There is a link with salt.
The Domesday Book records that the Manor of Mickleton was held by the Church of Enysham (a house of Benedictine monks in Oxfordshire) and had been in the time of King Edward, i.e. before the conquest in 1066. A Manor is an estate or unit of lordship (a piece of land under the jurisdiction of a lord); the Domesday survey was based on the manor and not the parish.
More specifically Domesday records there were: 14 hides (the standard unit for the assessment of tax and notionally a unit of land that would support a household, roughly 120 acres), 5 ploughs in demense (land ‘in Lordship’, i.e. part of the manor either kept by the lord in his own hands or farmed for his own profit), 20 Villans (an unfree peasant who owed his lord labour services but who also farmed land for himself; they were the wealthiest and most numerous of unfree peasants) and 7 Bordars (unfree peasant with less land than Villans, and of relatively low economic status) with 10 ploughs, 8 slaves and 2 female slaves (a person who was the property of the lord and had no lands), and 24 measures of salt from Droitwich. It was also recorded that the annual value of the whole is £10.
The reference to ploughs is perhaps one of the most striking aspects. However, a plough in the Domesday context does not refer to an agricultural implement but the taxable amount of land that can be ploughed by a team of eight oxen (termed a Plough Land). The area of farmed land (14 hides and 17 ploughs) and 27 unfree peasants plus servants working the land indicates that the land and farming was a substantive aspect of life in Mickleton at the time. It could be said that Mickleton was ‘under the plough’ in the sense that it is controlled or governed by the land and farming.
The reference to salt is more problematic. Firstly, it is not obvious what a measure of salt is. Measures in Domesday cannot really be regarded as exact or nationally defined quantities. Most early units of measurement ultimately relate to practical criteria such as parts of the human body or the pulling power of the ox. The latter is probably relevant in the context of a measure of salt. That and the fact that the salt was from Droitwich and was unlikely to be destined for Mickleton but more likely in transit along a Saltway that went through the village. Saltways were the main roads of the period and crossed the Cotswolds in all directions. One Saltway was said to climb the Cotswold Edge at Mickleton before going onto Chipping Campden and beyond. A north-south route-way that went from Mickleton and proceeded due South following the Cotswold Edge is also said to be prehistoric.
A Saltway was an important salt trading route and refers to any of the prehistoric and historical trade routes by which essential salt was transported to regions that lacked it. Salt has been throughout history an important traded commodity and has had a long-standing importance in human society; it is essential for human life, is a basic human taste, and is a food preservative. Droitwich (Droitwich Spa) is founded on salt - it was called Saline in Roman times - and is situated on substantial deposits of salt. Salt has been extracted there since ancient times. The natural Droitwich brine is ten times stronger than sea water.