392 ENGLISH FIELD SYSTEMS 



one-fourth as many days' week-work as a virgate.' Virgates are 

 also found at Berneston in 13 Henry VI and at Felsted Bury in 

 41 Edward III.- Sometimes, however, the villein unit took less 

 committal names. At Hadley there were 225 "terre," and 6 

 " moneday londs," the services from each being given in detail.^ 

 Lalling, described in the same series, had 12^ " terre " from which 

 villein serxices were due.'* Elsewhere no name whatever is given 

 to the unit; in the thirteenth-century enumeration of services 

 due at Borley, for example, we find merely " de singulis xx acris 

 terre." * 



Although information to the effect that the virgate or a corres- 

 ponding unit was the standard villein holding can be deduced 

 from the extents and from Domesday,^ it is impossible to discover 

 from them or from other documents hitherto cited what was the 

 aspect of the virgate. For that reason the later descriptions 

 contained in a Jacobean survey are of importance. The survey 

 in question describes the large manor of Barking in southwestern 

 Essex, not far from London. Although for the most part it neg- 

 lects to group the acres of its holdings in any way, there are 

 happy exceptions, of which the three following descriptions are 

 t^-pical : — 



'* Idem Johanis [Trewlove] similiter tenet unam virgatam terre 

 custmumarie et heriottalis vocatam Coryes . . . iacentem ex 

 parte orientali de le Fyve Elmes in Daggenham cum \i denariis 

 redditus annuatim percipiendis de una crofta terre vocata 

 Whites contipente per estimationem iii acras que nuper fuit par- 

 cella predicte virgate terre; de qua quidem virgata terre quatuor 

 clausa continent per estimationem xii acras terre arabilis insimul 

 iacentia inter terram , . . et tres alia clausa residuum predicte 

 virgate . . . continent per estimationem vii acras terre arabilis 



1 MSS. of the Dean and Chapter of Christchurch, Canterbury, Lib. B, £f. 

 1156, is2b. 



2 Rents, and Survs., D. of Lane. Portf. 2/5; ibid., Ro. 188. 

 ' Add. MS. 6160, f. 68 (early 14th century). 



* Ibid., f. 69. 



' MSS. of the Dean and Chapter of Christchurch, Canterbury, Lib. B, f. 143. 

 ^ e. g., at Homdon, Liston, Creping Hall, East Donyland, etc.: Victoria History 

 of Essex, i. 560-566. 



