STRAY NOTES, PREHISTORIC, SAXON, AND NORMAN. 233 



Thus, when we reckon the number of villeins, bordarii, serfs, etc., 

 who would be gathered around these fifteen cassata, we must con- 

 clude that there was for that time a large and influential population 

 in the place, and we cannot suppose either that the Dean and 

 Chapter in the times of King William's predecessors, or that the . 

 state of the times, would have allowed such population to remain 

 without the ministrations of religion. Thus the presence of a 

 presbiter, with what appears to have been an endowment of 90 acres 

 of land, during the period when the property had been taken away 

 and unjustly retained from the Dean and Chapter, goes far to prove 

 that such presbiter was not the first of his order to be found in 

 Navestock, and that he was but the successor of those who had 

 occupied his cure when the Dean and Chapter first held the property. 

 Moreover, the fact of the endowment, already alluded to, justifies 

 the supposition that as England began to be divided into parishes as 

 early as the seventh century, the presbiter in question was already 

 provided with a church. 



No evidences, it is true, as to the erection of such a building are 

 forthcoming, but when we read of the existence of such a church, as 

 we do in 1 181, as a building referred to as a matter of course, and 

 with no shade of novelty about it — together with the fact that the 

 same endowment of 90 acres of land is referred to as the income of 

 the sacerdos, whom we now find in place of the former presbiter — 

 we have strong proof in favour of the supposition that a church had 

 existed here for a lengthened period, and, as such, was founded in 

 Saxon times. 



As to the condition of Navestock prior to its re-bestowal on the 

 Dean and Chapter by the Conqueror, we gain some interesting par- 

 ticulars from the Domesday Survey. The land at that time was 

 reckoned as containing 3 manors, occupied by Howard, Ulsi, and 

 Turstinus Ruffus ; 2 hides, occupied by seven freemen — liberi 

 komines ; and half a hide and 20 acres by the presbiter. The two 

 manors, held more or less jointly by Howard and Ulsi, contained 

 5 hides less 20 acres, and we shall find that these two manors did 

 not become merged into one until after 1152, and probably under 

 the Firmarius Richard Ruft'us. 



The population of Navestock in the days of Edward the Con- 

 fessor, as described in Domesday, consisted, beside Howard and 

 Ulsi, Turstinus Ruffus, the seven liberi homines, and the presbiter, 

 of 12 villeins, 17 bordarii, and 4 servi, iti all 44 persons who with 



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