at the monastery he had founded, and the monastery and the relics became the object of pilgrimage. About 975 AD a nobleman and landowner named Leofric (alternatively Earl Alric) and his wife Leofleda (alternatively Countess Ethelfleda) had acquired extensive lands in Eynesbury; the name still included the area north of the Hen Brook now called St Neots. They soon founded a priory in what is now St Neots, close to the River Great Ouse. A priory could be a lucrative asset if it was of high religious repute, attracting pilgrims, and their money. Leofric and Leofleda needed the relics of a notable holy person as their patron, and Neot was their choice. They arranged to abstract his remains and brought them to their priory, where they were placed in a shrine. Norman conquest In 1066 William the Conqueror defeated the Anglo-Saxon defenders at the Battle of Hastings, and this resulted (after a struggle) in William becoming King. In 1085 William the Conqueror ordered that a survey of building and land ownership and value should be carried out, and this resulted in what is now known as the Domesday Book. Eynesbury was listed in the Domesday Book as being in the Toseland Hundred in Huntingdonshire; the name of the Eynesbury was written as Einuluesberiam and Einuluesberie in the Domesday Book. In 1086 there were two manors at Eynesbury; the annual rent paid to the lords of the manors in 1066 had been £44 and the rent had increased to £47 in 1086. The Domesday Book records that there were 76 households in Eynesbury in 1086, suggesting that the population was between 266 and 380 persons. The Domesday Book uses units of measure for land area such as hide and ploughland. These were terms for the area of land that a team of eight oxen could plough in a single season and are equivalent to ; this was the amount of land that was considered to be sufficient to support a single family. By 1086, the hide had become a unit of tax assessment rather than an actual land area; a hide was the amount of land that could be assessed as £1 for tax purposes. The survey records that there were 52.5 ploughlands at Eynesbury in 1086 and that there was the capacity for a further 2.5 ploughlands. In addition to the arable land, there was of meadows, of woodland, three