DOMESDAY SURVEY 



ease, where the abbey of Hide wisely provided for fast days by a toll of 

 38,500 herrings, and this manor also paid a composition of jir4 for 

 porpoises [marsuins, or sea-pigs, the record calls them). The coast 

 manors possessed a further source of revenue in their saltpans, of which 

 the survey mentions 285, averaging 30^. in value. Of these no fewer 

 than one hundred were on the abbot of Fecamp's manor of 'Rameslie ' in 

 the neighbourhood of Rye and Hastings ; and their importance is attested 

 by an entry under Pevensey Hundred, showing that the Count of 

 Mortain has retained in his own hands eleven saltpans belonging to 

 the manor of Hailsham, and that he held, as a complete holding, four 

 saltpans in Hooe. 



Although the iron mines in Sussex had been worked at least as 

 early as the time of the Romans, only one mine [ferraria) is mentioned in 

 the survey, that being in the hundred of East Grinstead and formerly 

 appurtenant to the royal manor of Ditchling. A quarry worth ()s. 4^. 

 occurs under Iping and another at Stedham valued at 6s. %d., and a 

 third worth loj. lod. under ' Greteham.' In Bignor there was a 

 ' molaria ' or quarry for mill-stones, valued at ^s. This completes 

 the list of sources of manorial revenue given in the survey ; the special 

 cases of the boroughs will be treated in the section on the Sussex 

 boroughs at the end of this chapter. 



On the condition of the population of Sussex, Domesday throws 

 little light. Freemen occur only as pre-Conquest tenants and have no 

 place in the Norman classification, being no doubt for the most part 

 absorbed into the ranks of the villeins. Of the services of these last we 

 learn nothing, though we have one glimpse of their organization in 

 the mention of the reeve of Tangmere, who received 20s. from 

 the issues of the manor which it was his duty to collect. Although the 

 villeins in the eleventh century were absolutely at the disposal of their 

 lord and were theoretically mere chattels they often had in practice an 

 amount of liberty to which legally they had no claim. Thus they 

 might even attain to such a measure of comparative independence as to 

 farm the manor to which they belonged, or a portion of it. 



As this point is of much importance, the Sussex evidence may here 

 be summarized. Mr. Round has referred to it when dealing with the 

 adjoining county of Hampshire,' where we read of two of St. Swithin's 

 manors, that ' villeins held and hold ' Alverstoke, while at Millbrook 

 ' villeins held it and hold it ; there is no hall there ' ; the 

 Sussex instances are more numerous, and belong, as Mr. Round observed, 

 to Brighton and its neighbourhood. At Brighton itself we have the 

 three allodial owners, one of whom had a hall, while the shares of the 

 others were held by villeins ; at Aldrington to the west ' villeins held ' 

 the outlyer of Beeding T.R.E., and we also read that ' villeins held ' 

 another outlyer of Beeding in Lewes rape. Bevendean to the east had 

 been held by 'villeins of Keymer,' and of estates in Iford, adjoining it 

 on the east, we read ' Has terras tenuerunt villani.' Bulmer had been 



' y.C.H. Hants, i. 442. 



367 



