2 AN AGRICULTURAL FAGGOT. 



says : " The evidence of the Domesday Survey seems 

 therefore to show that at its date about five million acres 

 were under the plough/' 1 Another says that there was 

 " a grand total of 6,060,000 acres sown with corn every 

 year." * As it is certain that at least one-third of the 

 arable land was in bare fallow each year, this esti- 

 mate would imply a total area of about 9,000,000 acres 

 under the plough. This, indeed, appears to be the figure 

 adopted by another writer, who estimates, however, that 

 of the 9,000,000 acres only 5,000,000 were sown each year. 8 

 I cannot profess to be able to decide between these varying 

 estimates, but I may observe that in the same counties in 

 1912 the total extent of arable land was 9,728,000 acres, 

 of which 262,000 acres were in bare fallow. Considering 

 the vast areas which during the past eight centuries have 

 been reclaimed from the waste and fen, it is somewhat 

 difficult to believe that there is no more land under arable 

 cultivation now than in 1086. 



All land in England is described in Domesday as belonging 

 either immediately to the King or to his vassals of different 

 degree, or to churches, which held it by direct grant from 

 Kings and from persons whose grants have been confirmed by 

 Kings, or to burgesses, whose tenure, though peculiar, still 

 appears as a tenure a form of conditional ownership. 4 



The unit of ownership was the manor, and was as a 

 general rule coterminous with the " vill," which was the 

 fiscal unit for it must be remembered that Domesday 

 was primarily a valuation list, and that an anxiety for 

 taxation rather than a thirst for knowledge was the Royal 

 motive for the great Survey. In some cases the vill con- 

 tained several manors, traces of which still remain in such 

 cases as Great Tew, Little Tew and Dun's Tew, in Oxford- 

 shire. 5 A manor was, in fact, an estate, and, of course, 



1 Seebohm, " The English Village Community," p. 103. 

 z Ballard, " The Domesday Inquest," p. 212. 

 8 Maitland, " Domesday Book and Beyond," p. 437. 

 4 Vinogradoff, " The Growth of the Manor," p. 293. 

 6 " The Domesday Inquest," p. 48. 



