The Domesday survey of 1086 confirms that most of the land was in the possession of the Abbey of Westminster, though parts of Titeberst (land to the east of Watling Street) were claimed by St Albans. The two major tenants were listed as Geoffrey de Mandeville and Geoffrey de Bec and they leased part of their holdings to tenant farmers. The land was densely forested but was gradually cleared throughout the medieval period for agricultural use and the population lived in dispersed farm settlements adjacent to field strips or scattered around the periphery of common land which made up a substantial part of the southern and western area of the Parish.