A HISTORY OF BERKSHIRE 



bishop of Salisbury, and one of his own officers to investigate the matter. 

 Called upon to explain the trouble, the abbot replied that the great 

 increase of the brethren under his rule had made ^thelwold's allowance 

 of a wey of cheese every ten days insufficient. He offered to increase 

 it to a wey every five days, and the prelates, accepting this, solemnly 

 excommunicated, with candles lighted, all who should challenge this 

 settlement. 1 



At the same time a record was made of the abbey's ' wicks ' and 

 of the weys due from each. 2 At their head is that of Shellingford pro- 

 ducing thirty weys. Now we saw that Domesday valued ' the dues of 

 cheese ' from Shellingford at 4 i6j. 8*/., which practically represented 

 just thirty weys. 3 Then we have East Lockinge, producing ten weys ; 

 and after it three names of peculiar interest, 4 for they are still represented 

 by Thrupp Wick (adjoining Abingdon) and by Goosey Wick and Charney 

 Wick, adjoining one another in the heart of the White Horse Vale. 

 When towards the close of Henry II's reign, Thomas de Husseburne 

 had charge of the abbey's revenues, he declared at the Exchequer that 

 ' all Berkshire was insufficient to provide milk and cheese for the 

 monks ' ; but the brethren replied that ' wicks ' (ivikae) were provided 

 from the time of St. ^Ethelwold to supply the said milk and cheese. 6 

 This would seem to carry back the dairy farms of the Vale to the middle 

 of the tenth century at least. 



Other wicks surviving in the Vale, such as Fyfield Wick and 

 Ardington Wick, have the same origin for their name, and the 

 Abingdon evidence supplies us with a private ' wick ' at Wantage, 

 where Gilbert Basset gave the abbey a wey a year from his ' wick ' 

 with the tithe of fleeces and lambs.' This raises the interesting 

 question whether some at least of the cheese produced in the Vale in 

 the Norman period was not made from ewes' milk. Another entry 

 relating to this gift suggests that it was so, 7 and I have shown that on the 

 Essex coast it was so not only at the time of Domesday but even as 

 late as the days of Elizabeth, when Norden speaks of its ' wickes or 

 dayries.' 8 At Sparsholt, however, as we have seen, Domesday enables 

 us to say that the dairy contained cows. 



Bread and cheese, pulse and pork, probably formed in the Norman 



1 They asked him what provision he had made for the abbot's table, and he replied that he had 

 assigned to it 46 weys a year, that is, probably, a wey a week except for the six weeks of Lent. 



2 ' Istas sunt wikse quae tot pisas invenire debent.' 



3 For the ten from Buckland were valued at i I2s. ^d. 



* ' De Lakinges, decem pondera. De Tropa iiii pondera. De duabus wikis de Goseie, xxviii. 

 pondera. De wika de Cerneia, xvi pondera' (Cbron. Ab. ii. 149). And see similar list, ii. 287 : ' Hae 

 sunt wikas quae invenerunt caseum in refectorio.' 



5 Ibid. ii. 243~4- 



* ' unum pensum casei de sua wicha, et decimam vellerum et agnorum ' (ii. 145-6). 



* ' de wica Theosi quae respicit ad ipsum dominium [Gilleberti Basset], id est pondera casei in 

 festo Sancti Michaelis [29 Sept.] et xii agnos, et xii vellera, quum tonduntur oves. Et si forte, morbo 

 ingruente, minores fuerint agni et oves, supplebit wicarius ... Si autem in die sancti Michaelis de 

 caseo pretendit inopiam, satisfaciet predictus wikarius in denariis . . . non minus quam v solidis ' (ii. 333). 

 So also an early grant of tithe by Sewal of Ilsley is defined as ' caseorum scilicet, et vellerum suarum 

 ovium ' (ii. 32). 



8 V.C.H. Essex, i. 371-3. 



306 



