100 Erhstoke and its Manor Lords. 



same period, and the material for such a purpose, which otherwise 

 would not be readily obtainable, is found in the Wiltshire 

 Inquisitions lately published by the Wiltshire Archaeological 

 Society.^ Unfortunately the examples obtained from this source 

 are too few in number to allow of an exhaustive comparison, for of 

 the fifty inquisitions that are actually post mortem Keevil is the 

 only manor referred to whose value exceeded that of Erlestoke, 

 while Cherhill, Collingbourne Ducis, and Everley are the only 

 others whose value exceeded £40. The dates of these inquisitions 

 range from 1292 to 1297, and judging from the Pipe Roll relating 

 to Erlestoke in 1287 its value was at least as high at that date as 

 in 1309. The details concerning Keevil (p. 198) are not given, 

 but tlie clear annual value was £60, or £6 more than that of 

 Erlestoke, though the area was about the same, and the excess 

 may be attributed to the absence in Keevil of any land, such as 

 that on the hill at Erlestoke, which would be valued so low as 2d., 

 and the presence of a larger quantity of meadow land whose value 

 was at least 2s., and may have Ijeen more. Of the manors whose 

 value exceeded £40 those of Collingltourne Comitis (p. 218 — now 

 Ducis) and Everley, which were both held in demesne by Edmund, 

 Earl of Lancaster, were much alike in their conditions, and the 

 former — whose value was nearest to that of Erlestoke — will sufiice 

 for comparison. The area of Collingbourne was probably more 

 than a thousand acres larger, but it cannot have contained so much 

 land of the value of that in the vale at Erlestoke, and it would 

 seem that the greater part of its best land was in the hands of the 

 lord, so that the villeins' land was of a low average value. The 

 general conditions, as shown in the accompanying table, were very 

 similar ; what the lord lost at Erlestoke by the low average value 

 of his arable he gained to some extent by the larger area of his 

 meadow land, and the smaller value of the pasture at Collingbourne 

 was made up by the larger value of the wood. There was evidently 

 not even a windmill attached to this manor, while at Erlestoke the 

 Manor Mill and Marsh Mill had both been given away. It is in 



' Abstracts of the Inquisitions Post Mortem relating to Wiltshire, from 

 the Reign of Henry III, Part III. (December, 1904). 



