DOMESDAY SURVEY 



the vasa apurn or beehives, and the ruscae, the ancestors of the straw ' skep ' of 

 modern days.*^ The value set on honey is seen by the fact that the ' King's 

 farm ' was partly paid in it, as at Diss and at Blythburgh, while at Ipswich we 

 see the old payment in kind in the process of commutation into a ' custom 

 of honey.' *^' Payment in kind still lingered on in the form of herring rents, 

 but as a rule the worth of estates was reckoned in cash, and the recurrence of 

 the rate of zd. an acre in the values of arable land is worth noting.*'* Manors 

 were often farmed out for a fixed sum, and the ' farmer ' seems not infre- 

 quently to have been the loser by the contract. Thus St. Etheldreda's estate 

 at Drinkstone, which had risen in value from 40J. to 60s. by 1086, was let to 

 farm at looj., but 'could not render so much.' At Desning {Deselinga) 

 Wisgar, the antecessor of Fitz Gilbert, had a manor of 20 carucates, which 

 was worth £^0 in the time of King Edward, and afterwards rose in value to 

 ^40. ' Yet he gave it to a steward to farm for ^C^S- But the manor could 

 not bear it.' At Ringsett, Geoffrey de Mandeville only received 6oj. for an 

 estate which he had let to farm for 70J., while at Higham the manor was 

 farmed for 30J., its value before the Conquest, though in 1086 it was only 

 worth 20J. At Pettaugh we hear of five commended freemen who were 

 ruined {confust) by their 18 acres of land, valued at 45J., having been farmed 

 out at 75^.,*^' and ruin seems also to have overtaken the farmers of William 

 de Scoies' manor of Blakenham."" On the other hand there are instances 

 of a manor being farmed for what it was really worth, or even at less than its 

 actual value.*" In one case the ' men of the hundred ' appraised land at 48/., 

 which had formerly rendered, and was rendering, as much as £6-**^ 



The Suffolk Domesday has nothing new to tell of the currency in which 

 these dues were paid, or of the system of weights and measures used in the 

 county. Payments were made and values were estimated by weight [ad pensum) 

 or by tale {ad numerum), in blanch money which had been assayed, or in un- 

 assayed coin, and an extra customary sum was occasionally exacted as gersuma 

 {degersuma).**^ Marks of silver and of gold occur, nummos or pence, an ' ounce 

 of gold,'*** and oras, the Danish unit of account. As Mr. Round has shown, 

 from a Suffolk case of later date than the Survey, and from other instances, the 

 ora in customary use was probably equal to i6d. This, it may be pointed 

 out, would, at Hacheston, where a church with 1 6 acres was valued at 2 oras, 

 agree well with the land value of 2d. an acre, and it may also be noted that 

 32^^'., or 2 oras of i6d'., was very commonly the payment for merchet, the 

 marriage fine for the daughter of an unfree man. The ora of 2od. may, 

 however, have been used, as has been already suggested, in royal taxation as 



*^ ijom. Bk. 328, Newton ('Vasa') ; 385, 'Wineberga ' ; 443*, Campsey ('Ruse*'). 



"' Ibid. 282, Diss, half a day's honey ; Blythburgh, one day's honey ; 290^, six sextars of honey and 4/. 

 towards the custom of honey. 



'" Cf. Dom. Bk. 300, Cretingham : 8 acres of waste land worth l6d. ; 366, Bardwell : 30 acres and a 

 plough, 5/. ; half a carucate and a plough, 10/. ; 425, Boulge ; 425^, Wenham : 30 acres worth 5^., &c. 



"'Ibid. 381^, 390, 393*, 436*, 440^, 441 ; cf. 284*, Herringfleet ; 285, ' Essa ' ; 303, Ousden 

 (farmed for double its value) ; 3-35^, Weston ; 376, Helmingham ; 377^, Raydon. 



"° Ibid. 353, 3531J. 



"'Ibid. 288, 288^, Bungay: land of the freemen; the manor had tripled in value; ' Burghea,' cf. 

 3133, Westleton. "' Ibid. 343. 



"• V.C.H. Norf. ii, 3 5 ; For gersuma cf. VinogradofF, op. cit. 1 43, 390 ; Maitland, op. cit. ; Dom. Bk. 281^, 

 Thorney, Bramford ; 282, Diss, Blythburgh ; 285, Parham ; 285^, 286, Mendlesham, Norton, Thurlow ; 

 2863, Harkstead ; 287, Groton ; ^%■]b, Bergholt ; 288^, 289, Bramford, Barrow ; 353, 353^, Blakenham. 



*" Ibid. 287;^, Bergholt ; 3091J, Cotton ; 353*, Blakenham ; \\zb, Thorington. 



I 409 551 



