THE DOMESDAY SURVEY 



conclude, therefore, that by 'the borough' Domesday means that ' third 

 penny ' of the borough dues which was normally the earl's portion. 

 Another item helped to swell the 'income he received from ' Cotes ; ' a 

 hundred bordars paid him fifty shillings a year in respect of their gardens 

 ' outside Warwick.' Gardening on this extensive scale is probably unique 

 in Domesday. 1 



The realm described by Domesday is a realm in which the plough 

 is king. To the ordinary reader there is something irksome in the dry, 

 endless figures relating to the plough-land and the plough, and even the 

 expert has to confess that he does not fully apprehend their significance 

 or their intention. But whether or not the Conqueror and his ministers 

 proposed to revise the system of land taxation, it is clear that they 

 attached great importance to obtaining a record of the arable land and 

 of the ploughs at work on it. In Warwickshire the feature that seems 

 to call for special notice is the occurrence at certain places of a number 

 of plough-teams in excess of that for which the land was reckoned to afford 

 employment. At Bishop's Hampton, with land for twenty-two ploughs, 

 there were two, we find, on the demesne and twenty-four outside it. 

 Sowe, with its five plough-lands, had six plough-teams, and at Radway, 

 with its six, there were six and a half. Charlecote had land for five 

 ploughs, but on the demesne were two, and five outside it. That such 

 excess was not due to mere scribal error, but was recognized by the com- 

 missioners is shown by the case of Wolfhamcote, where there were two 

 plough-lands, ' and yet,' they add, ' there are there three ploughs.' The 

 same formula is used at Ladbroke, at Newton and at Holme, at each of 

 which there was one for half a ploughland, at Walcote also, which for 

 its one plough-land had two and a half ploughs, and at Lillington, where 

 the discrepancy was so great that for only half a plough-land there were 

 two ploughs. 



The value of a manor varied mainly with the amount of stock on it 

 and especially of plough-oxen. When all the plough-oxen were gone, 

 the manor was described as ' waste," for the land could not be worked. 

 Of this ' waste ' land there was not much in Warwickshire. A ' hide ' 

 at ' Rincele ' is so described ; a hide and a half at Kington, a hide at one 

 of the Marstons, and a virgate and a half at Weston appear to complete 

 the list, save for i hides at Harbury which are specially entered as laid 

 * waste by the king's army.' 



Among the sources of rural wealth in addition to the ploughed land 

 were the woodland, which was very extensive, the pasture for the stock, 

 the watermills, and the meadows in the river-valleys. Although in War- 

 wickshire the woodland is reckoned by rough estimates of its area, and 

 not, as in certain other counties, by the number of swine it could feed, 1 

 its chief value as affording mast is implied by such entries as those at 



1 But it mentions twenty-three men with gardens at Holywell, a suburb of Oxford. 



" At Stoneleigh, however, the information is added that it could feed 2,000 swine, and at Cough- 

 ton there was reckoned to be pasture for 50 swine. At Kington by Claverdon it it reckoned in yet 

 another way, as worth ten shillings a year. 



291 



