)2 



A HISTORY OF ESSEX 



Domesday. At one of the Layers the plough-teams had increased 

 from 1 1 to 2, the rounceys from i to 2, the beasts from 3 to 5, and 

 the sheep from 38 to 146, and there was a mill where there had been 

 none. Yet the value had gone down from 4 to 3. If the Norman 

 lords laid hands on more than belonged to them, they had often the 

 merit of stocking their manors well. Even on those of Ralf son of 

 Turold of Rochester l we find cases in point. At Vange he had increased 

 the flock of sheep from 67 to 270, at Barstable Hall from 36 to 80, at 

 Ingrave from 40 to 76, and at Hanningfield from 117 to 8 10. As his 

 horses and beasts were almost stationary in number, while his swine 

 increased only from 84 to 1 18, we are led to believe that sheep-farming 

 must have offered special inducements. On four other of his manors, it 

 is true, the increase is more general, the beasts increasing from 20 to 59, 

 the swine from 35 to 101, and the sheep from 163 to 399. As the 

 earlier figures refer to the eve of the Conquest, we cannot account for 

 their smallness by the devastation that may have followed. 



Thorold Rogers, in his Agriculture and Prices^ speaks of cheese and 

 butter as ' these exceedingly important articles of agricultural economy. 

 For these and for milk, at the time of Domesday, reliance was placed not 

 only on the cow, but also on the sheep and the goat. All three are 

 mentioned throughout the Essex survey, and I have already given reasons 

 for believing that cows were more plentiful than might at first sight be 

 supposed. But the quantity of cheese consumed was great ; its value as 

 food was fully realized, especially by the lower orders, and the Pipe 

 Rolls of the twelfth century show us how large a part it played in 

 the provisioning of castles. In the middle ages 



The manufacture of cheese generally commenced at Christmas and was continued 

 till Michaelmas. Two cows, according to Walter of Henley's calculations, would 

 produce a wey of cheese within this time besides half a gallon of butter each week. 



Ewe milk, though less rarely taken and manipulated, was, however, occasionally 

 employed for the same purpose. The writer quoted above seems to reckon ten ewes 

 as equal in productiveness to one cow. It is possible, when ewe milk was used, that 

 it was mixed with that of the cow. Goats' milk was very rarely, if ever, employed, 

 goats having been very seldom kept in England or even in South Wales. 3 



We are now dealing with a period earlier than that described by Thorold 

 Rogers, and the goats, we shall find the she-goats were still a recog- 

 nized part of the live stock, though by no means, like the swine and the 

 sheep, an essential part. The goat-herd, in days before the Conquest, 

 ' was allowed the herd's milk after Martinmas, . . . and during the 

 summer his share of the whey,' with one kid from the flock's increase 

 yearly. 4 It is possible that the absence of the goat on many Essex 



was reckoned that the proper stock for Chingford was 100 sheep, 100 she-goats, 15 cows, I bull, IO 

 sows and I boar, apart from the horses and the plough-oxen (Domesday of St. Paul's, p. 144). 

 1 See p. 342 above. 2 Ed. 1866, i. 403. 



3 Ibid. p. 404. The period described is 1259-1400. 



4 Andrews, The Old English Manor, p. 221, citing the Rectitudines. It must be remembered that 

 the young kids were then and for centuries afterwards killed for food. Their skins also were made use 

 of, for Domesday records that ten goat skins (pellet caprinas) formed part of the annual render due from 

 Ipswich under the Confessor (fo. 119). For goats as live stock in the twelfth century, at Wickham St. 

 Paul's and at Chingford, see p. 367 above. 



368 



