THE DOMESDAY SURVEY 



it recovered from these troubles, and the occasional further fall in value 

 under Norman domination. 



The statistics of ploughs and ploughlands are, in Hertfordshire, 

 extremely precise, and enable us to learn on every manor the deficiency, 

 if any, in plough oxen both on the lord's demesne and on the land in 

 the peasants' hands. It must not be supposed that these animals, the 

 driving power, as it were, of the agricultural machine, were the only 

 stock comprised in the returns, but the abstracts of these returns in 

 Domesday Book omitted, in Hertfordshire, the rest. 1 We obtain how- 

 ever, in a single instance, an accidental glimpse of the numerous other 

 requisites for stocking an estate. When Humfrey (d'Ansleville) took 

 over from his lord Eudo Dapifer an estate in Hertford Hundred con- 

 taining 2 ploughlands he received therewith 68 beasts, 350 sheep, 

 150 swine, 50 goats, a mare (doubtless for breeding), and a pound's 

 worth of cloths and vessels (fo. 139). But these figures probably are 

 quite abnormal. We obtain some valuable particulars on the stocking 

 of Hertfordshire manors from the curious twelfth-century leases of those 

 belonging to the canons of St. Paul's, Kensworth, Caddington, Ardeley 

 and Sandon. 1 Oxen, cows, horses, sheep and swine formed the live stock 

 in fixed quantities, the prices ranging, some sixty years after the Domesday 

 Survey, from 3^. to 5-r. for horses and oxen, ^d. to $d. for sheep, and 

 8*/. to \od. for swine. 



The great importance of the plough oxen and the value of hay for 

 their keep are reflected in the entry of water-meadows in terms of the 

 oxen and their feed. We can trace clearly in Domesday Book the 

 richness of the meadows in the river valleys and their painful scarcity in 

 the uplands. Digswell, of which the arable land required 3 plough 

 teams, that is 24 oxen, had only meadow enough for 2 out of this 

 number ; Abbot's Langley, with the same requirements, had only 

 meadow for i ox ; while a nice calculation showed that Datchworth, 

 with its 1 6 plough oxen, had only ' meadow for half an ox ' ! Several 

 estates indeed appear to have had none at all. On the other hand, 

 down in the Lea valley, from the junction of the Ash southwards, 

 Stanstead Abbots had sufficient meadow for its 16 plough teams, and 

 Amwell, on the opposite bank, presents the same figures and seems even 

 to have had some hay to sell in addition. Hoddesdon, Broxbourne, 

 Wormley and Cheshunt all had sufficient meadow, and Broxbourne, 

 like Amwell, had more than sufficient, the hay in excess being worth 

 4-r. a year. Cheshunt could provide hay not only for its 23 plough 

 teams but for ' the horses on the demesne,' of whose existence, by 

 the way, we should not otherwise have heard. Even up the little 

 valley of the Rib not only Thundridge but Standon had sufficient 

 meadow for the oxen, but higher up, where the valley divides, Braughing 

 had only hay for 3 of its 1 1 teams and Westmill only enough for 6 out 

 of its 24. It will thus be seen that the study of the meadows as entered 



1 See p. 264 above. 



* See The Domesday of St. Paufs (Camden Society), pp. 124, 128, 1345. 



293 



