THE DOMESDAY SURVEY 



their ' other things appertaining to the ferm ' ; for Professor Maitland 

 shrinks from ' attempts to measure the flood of beer ' that our ancestors 

 then consumed.' In addition to these payments in kind (or their money 

 commutations), Northamptonshire was bound to make a yearly gift to 

 the queen of (apparently) £^.^ Those of Oxfordshire, Warwickshire, 

 and Worcestershire were ^5 each. In Bedfordshire a different system 

 prevailed ; from three royal manors the queen received in all eight 

 ' ounces of gold ' (nearly jCs)- To the interesting subject of ' the queen's 

 gold ' a chapter is devoted by the author of the Dialogue on the Ex- 

 chequer, but when he wrote (under Henry II.) the amount that she could 

 claim on payments to the King was still under discussion. 



It must be remembered that not only the queen, but the king also 

 received money from these counties, as well as his wheat and honey and 

 other payments in kind. As it is now the fashion to detect archaic 

 survivals in nursery rhymes, one may perhaps be permitted to suggest 

 that we obtain a glimpse of that royal household to which these Domes- 

 day entries relate in those venerable and familiar lines : — 



The king was in the parlour, 



Counting out his money ; 

 The queen was in her closet. 



Eating bread and honey. ' 



What the money was which the king (or his agents) counted is by 

 no means a simple question. The payments were made in silver pennies 

 {denarii) ; but these might be reckoned ' by tale ' simply, or might be 

 due on the basis of twenty pence to the ounce, or again, as with the 

 sum due from the county at large, might be payable in ' assayed {blancas) 

 pounds of twenty pence to the ounce,' or, lastly, as at Finedon, ' weighed 

 pounds of twenty pence to the ounce.' The chaos of systems prevaihng 

 at the Treasury was simplified under Henry I., and it may not, even 

 under William, have been as bad as it seems, for the Domesday scribes 

 had a habit, most misleading to the student, not only of using alternative 

 phrases, but also of omitting at times as surplusage the qualifying phrases 

 they added at others. 



The revenue derived by the Crown from Northamptonshire was 

 swelled by sundry items. Prominent among these were the profits of 

 jurisdiction, or, as it was termed, ' soc ' {socd). Both ' soc ' and ' soch- 

 men ' are of frequent occurrence in the Domesday Survey of the shire, 

 but the meaning of these terms is too vague, and the whole subject too 

 technical for discussion here. The latest and most authoritative study is 

 that of Professor Maitland, to which the reader is referred.* It is, how- 

 ever, of great importance and of much local interest to observe that 

 Northamptonshire, in Domesday, is distinguished from the counties 



' Domesday Book and Beyond, p. 438, 441. 



» Domesday combines this ' gift ' with the payment due for hay, but the latter is entered 

 separately under Wiltshire (fo. 64A), and its deduction would leave £S- 



' Mr. Stevenson, however, thinks that the honey may have been used for makmg mead. 

 * Domisday Book and Beyond, pp. 66-79 ('The sokemen '), 80-107 ('Sake and Soke'). 



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