THE DOMESDAY SURVEY 



it will be seen, involved a total decrease of 5 in the number of the 

 peasantry ; and yet the lord's plough-teams were 2 as before, while 

 those of the men had increased from 3 to 4. An abnormal case such as 

 this is a further warning surely against the vain attempt to obtain de- 

 finite conclusions from the bewildering morass of figures contained in 

 Domesday Book. All that we can hope for is, here and there, to dis- 

 cover a patch of firm ground, as in the relation of * servi ' or ' bovarii ' 

 to the ploughs on the lord's demesne. 



Professor Maitland has well observed that we should hardly expect 

 the Norman lords to mark their advent by improving the condition of 

 any class of the peasantry, and that ' it speaks ill ' for the fate of the 

 villeins and bordars ' that under the sway of foreigners, who may fairly 

 be suspected of some harshness and greed, their inferiors, the true servi, 

 are somewhat rapidly disappearing.' 1 It must however be remembered 

 that in name at least the classes are unchanged, and that the labour 

 services due from the classes above the ' serfs ' were already, so far as we 

 can learn, fixed in amount. Where the oppression of the new system 

 seems to be most manifest is in the exorbitant rents occasionally exacted 

 for manors : how the reeves who ' farmed ' them contrived to pay these 

 rents remains somewhat of a mystery. The county survey opens with 

 the king's manor of Benfleet, of which one of the Essex tenants-in- 

 chief had charge. He is shown paying for that manor 12 a year, 

 though its annual value was appraised at only 8. Hatfield (Broadoak) 

 was reckoned to be worth 60 a vear > but Peter de Valognes, the sheriff, 

 was drawing from it for the king >8o a year, and 5, it would seem, 

 in addition from its sub-tenant. Worse still, from Havering, worth 40 

 a year, he was drawing 80, together with another 10, which some 

 one must have paid for the privilege of leasing it from him. 1 



The example of King William was followed by Count Eustace, 

 whose demesne manors of Coggeshall and Rivenhall are entered in suc- 

 cession. The former was reckoned to have risen in value from >C IQ to 

 14, but was made to pay 20 ; from the latter, which has risen only 

 from g to 12, 20 was similarly exacted. 3 The value of Amberden 

 had remained unchanged at I2 > but Ranulf Peverel had for three years 

 been drawing from it 18 annually. Kelvedon, we read, had risen in 

 value from $ to 8, but the Abbot of Westminster contrived to draw 

 from it 12 a year. The most instructive case perhaps is at Thaxted, 

 which important lordship was reckoned to have risen from 30 to 50 

 in value since it had passed into the hands of Richard Fitz Gilbert, but 

 which had been leased by him for 60 to ' a certain Englishman,' * who 

 appears to have lost at least 10 a year by the bargain. 6 In this case, 



1 DomeiJay Book and Beyond, pp. 35-6. 



* From Hatfield he received ' c. solidos de gersuma,' and from Havering ' x. libras de gersuma ' 

 in addition to the rent. These entries are valuable for their bearing on those under Colchester, from 

 which the sheriff similarly received 'c. solidos de gersuma.' They should also be compared with the 

 Colchester entries for the greatly increased amounts exacted by the Crown (see p. 421 below). 



3 See pp. 461-2 below. 



4 On this employment of Englishmen by Normans see the remarks on p. 355 above. 



6 ' Tune valuit xxx. libras, et quando recepit similiter ; modo valet 1. libras, ut dicunt franci et 



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