hall

Latin, aula, halla, haula.

The hall was the lord's house, what would later be called the manor house. Most references to halls were to pre-Conquest conditions. The interest in pre-Conquest halls appears to be related to the question of manorial status, though manors without halls were occasionally noted. More than two-thirds of the references to halls occur in the Yorkshire folios, where the devastated state of the county may have encouraged the commissioners to collect as much confirmation as possible as to the manorial status of pre-Conquest holdings.

For more detail, see F.W. Maitland, Domesday Book and beyond (1897).