DOMESDAY SURVEY 



period, usually accompanied by a rally in the third, bringing the last 

 value up to or beyond the first. Of course there are many instances of 

 values maintained, or even steadily rising, but as a rule the value 

 immediately after the Conquest is less than it had been just previously. 

 This is indeed what would be expected ; but, as far as western Sussex is 

 concerned, it does not seem possible to draw any definite conclusions 

 from the figures : adjacent lands suffered in very different degrees, and 

 the personality of the Saxon tenant seems to have had no influence on 

 the depreciation — contrary to what we find in some counties where the 

 manors of Earl Godwin appear to have been ravaged and those of the 

 queen spared. But in eastern Sussex we are able to see something of 

 the desolating effect of the passage of an army through the country. 

 The values for the second period are lacking in the case of the hundred 

 of Pevensey, where William landed, but the fifty-two burgesses of 

 Pevensey diminished to twenty-seven, and the manors of Bexhill, 

 Wilting, and Filsham lying between Pevensey and Hastings are all 

 returned as having been 'waste' in 1066, as were also Guestling and 

 ' Ivet,' east of Hastings and probably ravaged while the troops were 

 lying in the town, or in the expedition against the men of Romney. 

 The southern portions of Herstmonceux and Hooe probably suffered 

 during this march as their values had fallen respectively from jC^ ^^ jC^ 

 and from ^^25 to ^6 ; Wartling in some unaccountable way escaped 

 all injury, and neither ' Bohnton ' nor HoUington were much affected. 

 On their way to the field of battle the Normans passed through Crow- 

 hurst and left it waste, while of six manors within Netherfield Hundred 

 where the battle took place three became waste, one was at the time of 

 the survey valueless, another had fallen from 100 shillings to 20 shillings, 

 and Mountfield had come off lightly with a fall from ^3 ^'^ 20J. 

 Ashburnham, Ninfield and Catsfield all suffered considerably, and 'waste ' 

 is written against them and against part of Saddlescombe, Salehurst and 

 the neighbourhood of Ticehurst, but whether these more northern lands 

 were desolated by Harold's army or William's, or by both, it would be 

 rash to decide. Of the varying depreciation of values throughout the 

 county some explanation might be sought in the different warmth with 

 which the tenants responded to Harold's call for levies, and in the losses 

 sustained by the several contingents, but speculation is an unsatisfactory 

 substitute for knowledge, and more than has already been stated cannot 

 safely be deduced from our figures. Although the immediate effects of 

 the Conquest were thus disastrous to Sussex, the injury was but tempor- 

 ary, and by 1086 almost all the wasted manors had recovered, and many 

 had surpassed their original values.' 



Besides money rents there are three instances in the survey of the 



» Mr. Round has shown that Prof. Freeman in writing on ' William's ravages in Sussex ' has erred 

 strangely in asserting that ' the lasting nature of the destruction wrought at this time is shown by the large 

 number of places round about Hastings, which are returned in Domesday as waste,' and in speaking of 

 ' the lasting damage which is impUed in the lands being returned as " waste " twenty years after ' {Nor- 

 man Conquest [ed. 2], iii. 741) ; for Domesday on the contrary shows the recovery of the manors then 

 laid waste. 



363 



