THE DOMESDAY SURVEY 



The subjects on which Domesday Book contains, in Essex, informa- 

 tion of most interest and value are the distribution of estates before and 

 after the Conquest ; the various classes represented among the small 

 holders and peasantry, with the indications that these classes were passing 

 through a period of change ; the rise and fall in value of land ; the rela- 

 tion of the Hundred to the ' vill ' or to the parish of to-day ; the extent 

 and distribution of the woodland and of the live stock kept upon the 

 demesne, that is, roughly speaking, on the home farm of the manor. 

 Of the industries and sources of wealth Domesday can tell us little, for 

 these at the date of the great Survey were primitive and few. Here as 

 elsewhere the place of honour is assigned by Domesday to the plough, 

 with its all-important team of oxen, reckoned as eight in number. The 

 streams watered the meadows which provided hay for the oxen, and 

 turned the wheels of the ancient mills where the men of the manor, to 

 the lord's profit, brought their corn to be ground. The woodland pro- 

 vided the kings with sport, and supplied timber and fuel for the local 

 lords and their men, but was valued mostly for the feed it afforded for 

 vast herds of swine. The rural economy of Essex in all these respects 

 differed nowise from that which the Survey shows us in other counties ; 

 but one great feature appears to be peculiar to itself. For I hope to show 

 that the frequent entries of manors containing ' pasture for sheep ' possess 

 a special meaning, and refer, although the fact has been hitherto un- 

 suspected, to the famous marshes of Essex. They reveal, it will be 

 found, the existence of an old-world industry, of which the tradition 

 lingers in the ' wicks ' of the Essex coast, and they help to explain the 

 strange detached fragments of parishes which form a very mosaic down 

 among the sludgy creeks. 



Down by the sea also were the saltpans, especially in the north-east 

 of the county, providing by primitive methods a then precious commodity. 

 In a few places, chiefly near the seats of Norman barons, vineyards had 

 been lately planted, while the beehives, of which the Survey so carefully 

 records the number, produced not only honey, and wax for the candles 

 of the time, but also what our forefathers quaintly termed ' that salutary 

 and delicious species of wine called metheglin or mead. 1 Of trade there 

 was then little or none ; not a single market appears in Essex, although 

 they are found on its northern border at Haverhill, Sudbury and Clare. 

 Colchester, already a town of importance, described apart and at some 

 length at the close of the county survey, was peopled of course by 

 * burgesses,' and there is mention of ' burgesses ' at Maldon ; but there 

 are few traces of trade at either, even at a later date. In addition to the 

 points I have now enumerated there are as usual incidental statements 

 rich in unexpected information, and affording glimpses of lawless aggres- 

 sion, of questions referred to the sworn men of the Hundred or the county 



acres; Felsted, where a hide is found to consist of 3 virgatcs pha \ virgatc ; Rettendon, where i6J 

 hides flu I hide and 30 acres//*/ ^ hides and 30 acres = 20 hides. Nor do these entries stand alone. 



1 See Young's Agriculture of Eisex (1807), citing (ii. 363) Howlctt, who found the labourer still 

 regaling himself with the pleasant cooling beverage obtained from the last droppings of the combs.' 



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