Among the manors which William holds in the south-west a distinction is drawn by the Exeter Domesday. The manors which the Confessor held are 'The King's Demesne which belongs to the kingdom,' while those which were held by the house of Godwin are the 'Comital Manors[679].' So in East Anglia certain manors are distinguished as pertaining or having pertained to the kingdom or kingship, the _regnum_ or _regio_[680]. This does not seem to have implied that they were inalienably annexed to the crown, for King Edward had given some of them away. Neither when it speaks of the time of William, nor when it speaks of the time of Edward, does our record draw any clear line between those manors which the king holds as king and those which he holds in his private capacity, though it may just hint that certain ancient estates ought not to be alienated. The degree in which the various manors of the crown stood outside the national system of finance, justice and police we can not accurately ascertain. Some, but by no means all, pay no geld. Of some it is said that they have never paid geld. Perhaps in these ingeldable manors we may see those which constituted the royal demesne of the West Saxon kings at some remote date. Of the king's vill of Gomshall in Surrey it is written: 'the villeins of this vill were free from all the affairs of the sheriff[681],' as though it were no general truth that with a royal manor the sheriff had nothing to do.
As with the estates of the king, so with the estates of the earls, we find it impossible to distinguish between private property and official property. Certain manors are regarded as the 'manors of the shire' (_mansiones de comitatu_[682]); certain vills are 'comital vills[683],' they belong to 'the consulate[684].' Hereditary right tempered by outlawry was fast becoming the title by which the earldoms were holden. The position of the house of Leofric in Mercia was far from being as strong as the position of the house of Rolf in Normandy, and yet we may be sure that King Harold would not have been able to treat the sons of Ælfgar as removable officers. But one of the best marked features of Domesday Book, a feature displayed on page after page, the enormous wealth of the house of Godwin, seems only explicable by the supposition that the earlships and the older ealdormanships had carried with them a title to the enjoyment of wide lands. That enormous wealth had been acquired within a marvellously short time. Godwin was a new man: nothing certain is known of his ancestry. His daughter's marriage with the king will account for something; Harold's marriage with the daughter of Ælfgar will account for something, for instance, for manors which Harold held in the middle of Ælfgar's country[685]; and a great deal of simple rapacity is laid to the charge of Harold by jurors whose testimony is not to be lightly rejected[686]; but the greater part of the land ascribed to Godwin, his widow and his sons, seems to consist of _comitales villae_.