THE DOMESDAY SURVEY 



ploughs and teams had diminished from 8 to 7, and those of the peasants 

 from 34 to 18, Domesday adding that the stock consequently could be 

 increased by 16 ploughs. Except for an increase in the number of 

 sheep, and the gain of an additional mill, there is nothing to explain the 

 rise in 'value' from 3 to 50; indeed the peasantry had slightly 

 decreased in number. Here again one has to point out that, owing to 

 its solitary grandeur, the great record cannot be interpreted by the help 

 of others of its age, and that we know very little of the actual form in 

 which the Norman lords received their revenues from the land. A 

 baron might follow the example of the Crown and the great ecclesias- 

 tical landowners and lease a manor such as Thaxted for a fixed sum of 

 money, 1 or he might keep it, as it were, ' in hand ' and work it through 

 his own bailiff. In the latter case of course there would be no fixed 

 rent, and the value apparently would have to be appraised by ' the men 

 of the Hundred.' One does not see how such appraisal could result in 

 a greatly increased valuation where all the conditions remained virtually 

 unchanged. On the whole therefore it must be admitted that in this 

 matter of ' value ' we have still to feel our way. 



The most important source of wealth at the time, the essential 

 item in rural economy, was the plough. And without its team of 

 plough-oxen, in Domesday always reckoned as 8 in number, 1 the plough 

 was useless. On the opening page of the county survey we read that 

 the ' men's ploughs ' at Witham had diminished from 1 8 to 7 ; ' and 

 this loss was in the time when Suean and Baignard were sheriffs, and 

 (was caused) by the death of the beasts.' At Hatfield Broadoak, where 

 the men's ploughs had similarly diminished from 40 to 31, 'this loss 

 was in the time of all the sheriffs, and (was caused) by the death of 

 the beasts.' 3 It was the duty of the sheriff or other ' farmer ' of a 

 manor to keep up the number of the live stock, especially of the 

 plough-oxen. Illustrations of this practice are found in the early 

 leases of Essex manors belonging to the church of St. Paul's. It is 

 difficult to say how nearly the plough-team in actual use corresponded 

 with that of 8 oxen, which alone was recognized in Domesday. 

 A century after the great Survey the Rotu/us de Dominabus (1185) 

 shows us at Wigborough, where the land is heavy, 6 oxen and 4 

 horses in a team. At Wickham St. Paul's there were on the demesne, 

 in 1086, two plough teams, and in 1222 we find it reckoned that its 

 cultivation required ' two teams of 1 6 head ' of stock, that is, 8 in 

 each. But at Walton-on-the-Naze and Thorpe-le-Soken there were 10 

 head to the team in 1222, as there were in an early lease of the entire 



1 The normal term for this word was ' firma,' as at Mundon, where we read, 'Tune val* x. lib. ; 

 raodo xvii. ; fuit ad firmam pro xxx. lib' sub ipso Eudone ' ; but at Thaxted ' census ' is employed, as it 

 also is at Havering and Shalford. It has been supposed that 'census' was specially applied to woodlands 

 on the ground of the chapter ' De censu nemorum ' in the 'Dialogus de scaccario' (ii. n) ; but it was 

 not thus specialized in Domesday. One may here note the solitary appearance of ctniarii (rent-paying 

 tenants) in Essex, viz. at Waltham (Holy Cross), where they had increased in number from 20 to 36. 



* See Feudal England, pp. 35-6. 



At the present moment farming operations are greatly hampered in the Transvaal ' by the loss of 

 the plough-oxen ' during the war. 



365 



