DOMESDAY SURVEY 



were five demesne ploughs and exactly ten * serfs.' For these ploughs 

 the lord must have provided forty oxen, and it is noteworthy that the 

 stock of oxen which the bishops had to keep up there is recorded two 

 centuries later as forty-three. 1 



The peasantry were of the usual classes. Putting aside the * serfs,' 

 Domesday reckons about half of them as villeins ; below these came 

 the bordars, and then the cottars, the last of whom were unconnected 

 with the ploughing organization. 



One must not forget that wine was then among the products of 

 Berkshire. At Bisham, a demesne manor of Henry de Ferrers, Domes- 

 day mentions one of these vineyards in which Norman lords endeavoured 

 to produce the beverage which had been theirs at home. 



' The small but interesting class of buri^ burs or colibertij as Pro- 

 fessor Maitland terms them, 1 are represented by 18 ' burs ' (at Letcombe 

 Regis) and 24 coliberts ar Abingdon (' Bertune'). 3 A single ' rachen- 

 este,' with a plough of his own, is mentioned at Goosey ; it is unusual 

 to find one of this class so far east. 



The Berkshire streams, those English ' bournes ' which gave their 

 names to Lambourn and Shalbourne, to Pangbourne and Hagbourne, 

 and where, in the down region, they ran dry in the summer to 

 Winterbourne, fed those manorial mills which figure so largely in the 

 Survey. The value of the ' multure ' is carefully recorded, for the corn 

 of the peasants had to be ground there, which brought profit to the 

 lord. At times the right to a mill was in dispute ; Charlton and the 

 Hanneys faced one another across what has now become the Wilts and 

 Berks canal ; under both it is recorded that, according to the Hundred 

 (Court) Walter Giffard on the Hanney side was in wrongful possession 

 of a mill belonging to the King's manor of Charlton. At Ardington, 

 not far off, the powerful Robert d'Ouilly held three mills, one of which 

 was claimed by ' Cola the Englishman ' who held land just below it on 

 the stream. But three English witnesses testified that it had always 

 belonged to Ardington. 



These Domesday watermills can often still be identified. A 

 valuable early charter records the grant of a Berkshire one and helps us 

 to realize their importance. 4 Sheffield in Theale, lying on the Kennet 

 between Burghfield and Englefield, is entered in Domesday as a manor 

 of the Count of Evreux, worth forty shillings a year, the mill alone 

 being worth ten. In 1197-8 Alan de Whitchurch, who held it 6 under 

 the Count's successors, the monks of Noyon, at a rent of forty shillings 

 (the actual Domesday 'valet'), granted the manorial mill 8 to William 

 de Englefield with the ' suit ' and ' multure ' of his men of Sheffield, 

 and several appurtenances, namely the mill-acre (' Mulaker ') of land in 

 front of it and the mill-acre (' Mulnaker ') of meadow at ' Husseie- 



1 Sarum Charters, p. 364; 2 Domesday Book and Beyond, p. 36. 



3 Their exact position is somewhat uncertain (Ibid. 36-8). 



4 See my Ancient Charters (Pipe Roll Soc.), pp. 105-8. 



5 It appears as his father's ' Scheaffelda Rogeri de Witchercha '-in 1 167 (Pipe Roll 13 Hen. II, p. 9). 

 8 It was burnt down in recent times, having been eventually used as a paper mill. 



303 



