THE DOMESDAY SURVEY 



Book, we find the marshes of Essex treated as feed for sheep ; and their 

 chief product was the cheese. We may even believe that the * huge 

 cheeses ' which excited the wonder of a later age were already known in 

 the twelfth century, for ' great cheeses ' are entered as fetching sixpence 

 each under Henry II., while the price of others was as low as twopence. 1 



We are now justified in tracing back to an even earlier period this 

 venerable practice. For in the Recfitudines, a document believed to date 

 from the tenth century, the duties of the shepherd are described as in- 

 cluding the milking of the ewes twice a day, and the making of cheese 

 and butter. Among his perquisites were ' the milk of the herd for seven 

 nights after the equinox and a bowl of whey or butter-milk each night 

 during the summer.' : It will be observed that the milking of the ewes 

 was then in the hands of men as it was in the days of Elizabeth ; and 

 this confirms the belief that the whole practice was continuous. 



Of these primitive dairies down in the Essex marshes the memory 

 is still preserved in the ' wicks ' which dot its coast. The ' wickes or 

 dayries ' of the Tendring Hundred are represented in St. Osyth alone by 

 Well Wick, Lee Wick, Wigborough Wick, and Cocket Wick ; and so 

 are those of Canvey Island by Monks Wick, West Wick, North Wick, 

 Farther Wick, and Knights Wick. When Benfleet and Canvey were 

 ' disafforested ' in 1563, eight 'marshes ' in the island had names ending 

 in ' wick.' The statements of Camden and of Norden are thus fully 

 confirmed. The evidence moreover is clinched by a passage of great 

 importance in the survey of St. Paul's manors in 1222. Of Tillingham 

 we read that * in the marsh are four sheepwalks (bercarie), of which one 

 is called Howich and can carry (sustinere) 180 head ; another is called 

 Middelwich and can carry 1 30 head ; a third is called Doddeswich and 

 can carry 1 32 head ; a fourth is called Pirimers and can carry 1 10 head.' * 

 The total number of sheep, it will be seen, was 552, as against the 400 

 for which, according to Domesday, the Tillingham marshes had afforded 

 feed in 1086.* 



Now that the meaning of c pasture for sheep ' has been thus made 

 clear, its mention becomes sometimes of assistance in identifying doubt- 

 ful manors. Essex possesses a Tilbury-by-Clare in addition to the better 

 known East and West Tilbury (-on-the-Thames). Which of these was 

 the * Tiliberia ' held by Thierri Pointel in 1086 ? Mr. Chisenhale-Marsh 



fo. 310). These cheeses must have been made from ewes' milk alone, and the witnesses' names date 

 the charter as of 1 164-89. 



1 Fifty 'magni casei ' were bought for Berkhampstead Castle in 1173 at a cost of 2J/., while 200 

 which were sent to Gloucester, cost only i 13*. \d., that is twopence each (Pipe Roll, 19 Henry II. pp. 

 22, 23). But loo 'magni casei' sent to Arundel cost less than the others, namely z o/. jj. (ibid, 

 p. 26). The wey of cheese was then selling at about 4/. 6J. 



1 Andrews' The GU English Manor, p. 220. 



1 Dometdaj of St. Pau/'i (Camden Society), p. 59. For the ' dairy aSai a " wyk " ' in the adjoin- 

 ing parish of Dengie, see p. 372 note 5 above. Domesday records (i. 58) that at Buckland, Berks, on the 

 banks of the Thames, there was a 'wick' producing yearly 10 weys of cheese ('Wica de x. pensis 

 caseorum ') worth I 121. ^J. 



* See p. 442 below. At another of St. Paul's manors, Walton-on-the-Naze, now well known for its 

 flock of Suffolk sheep, there was, in 1222, ' pastura in marisco et in terra susenna ad quadringentas oves 

 cum suis fctibus,' and this marsh is named later ' Ewenemersh," carrying 400 ewes ' ad majus centum.' 



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