A HISTORY OF DURHAM 



trative centre of the agricultural group would naturally be the place where 

 produce was weighed and measured and the standard measures of the district 

 were kept. The byre or cattle stable (bovaria, vaccaria) calls for no special 

 comment. An enclosed copse, plantation, or perhaps an orchard (virgultum) 

 frequently formed part of the demesne stock. The villeins of Heighington 

 enclose the bishop's copse, and at Durham there was a toft 'juxta virgultum 

 Domini Episcopi.' 



The mill was, of course, an indispensable factor in the life of an agricul- 

 tural community. The mills on the bishop's lands were provided by him 

 and were a not inconsiderable source of revenue. 1 They were generally 

 farmed at a fixed sum, and this seems to have been the regular plan even in 

 Bishop Pudsey's time, for it was particularly noted that the mill at Tursdale 

 was in the bishop's hand 'nondum ad firmam positum.' The farm was 

 commonly paid in money, but the mill of Carlton rendered twenty measures 

 of wheat according to the measure of Jarrow. At Norton a little holding 

 consisting of 8 acres and a meadow was attached to the mills, which as usual 

 were at farm. The mills were generally moved by means of a water-wheel, 

 and it was the business of the villeins to construct and repair the mill-dam 

 and to cart mill-stones as they might be required. 2 The obligation to make 

 use of the lord's mill and to pay a fee for that accommodation, technically 

 known as ' secta molendini,' in English suit and grist, was repugnant to most 

 tenants, who were inclined to make use of unauthorized handmills. 3 Indi- 

 viduals and communities were sometimes allowed their own mills as a special 

 privilege. Thus the burgesses of Wearmouth were allowed to have hand- 

 mills, a privilege imitated from the Newcastle charter upon which theirs was 

 modelled.* There is a case also of a private mill worked by horses at Oxenhal), 

 where the tenant and his land are expressly freed from multure and services at 

 the bishop's mills. 



The common bakehouse appears to have existed only in the towns. It is 

 noted at Durham, Gateshead, and Darlington. In other parts of England 

 it was an ordinary manorial banalite, which the tenants were bound to use, 

 paying a fee known as ' fornagium.' 6 



The fisheries were another valuable part of the stock of the demesne. 

 These were either a stew or fish-pond as at Bedlington, where the villeins 

 ' parant piscariam,' or else the exclusive right to take fish in streams and 

 rivers.' The word appears to be more generally used in this second sense. 

 Thus the bishop's fishery at Whickham yielded 3/., the prior of Brinkburn 

 had another there of the bishop's alms, and the men of Ryton another still 

 which they farmed of the bishop. These were on the Tyne and the fish 

 were taken by means of a yare, a kind of dam with a trap into which the 

 salmon were directed as they came up the river. 7 The bishop seems also to 



1 At the close of the thirteenth century the farm of the mills of the bishopric yielded 1387. 12s. \d, 

 Receipt Roll, 1307, in Boldon Bk. (Surtees Soc.), App. pp. xxvii-xxviii. 



3 e.g. Thicldey and Stanhope. s See Ashley, op. cit. i. 34, 62, and the literature there cited. 



* See Bishop Pudsey's charter to Wearmouth in Boldon Bk. (Surtees Soc.), App. p. xlii. 



5 Ashley,^, cit. i. 62, where the case of a survival of this as late as 1714 is quoted. 



5 The right to have whales, sturgeons, and other royal fish belonged exclusively to the bishop in 

 his capacity of 'comes palatinus.' See Lapsley, op. cit. 58, 63, 317, 319-320. 



7 See Receipt Roll, 1307, in Boldon Book (Surtees Soc.), App. p. xxxix, and Canon Greenwell's note in 

 ibid, gloss, s. v. Yare. The yares were no doubt the same as the weirs and kiddells which the Great Charter 

 directed to be thrown down throughout England. Cf. the basket weirs on the Severn described in Seebohm, 

 Village Community, 151-153, and the accompanying sketch. 



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