THE DOMESDAY SURVEY 



that of Suain at Rayleigh. ' (There is) now,' we read, ' a park and six 

 arpents of vineyard, and it yields 20 muids (modios) of wine in a 

 good season.' Here both the park and the vineyard were new, new as 

 the castle which Suain had raised, 1 and this appears to be the only in- 

 stance in which Domesday mentions a vineyard's yield. Next in interest, 

 and of the same size, is the vineyard at Castle Hedingham, which affords, 

 I think, presumptive evidence that Aubrey de Vere had already made it 

 a seat of his famous house. And here, less, it would seem, than two 

 centuries ago, there were visible ' wild vines bearing red grapes,' the still 

 lingering descendants of the vineyard of its Domesday lord. But Aubrey 

 had also planted another and a larger vineyard, some 4 miles away, on 

 his manor of Belchamp Walter, where he had, I think, another resi- 

 dence. Only one of its eleven ' arpents' had as yet come into bearing. 

 Aubrey seems to have been fond of vineyards, for we find that he had 

 one at Lavenham, across the Suffolk border, and another on his Middle- 

 sex manor of Kensington. Next in size to the Belchamp vineyard was 

 that at Great Waltham, which points, I think, to Geoffrey de Mande- 

 ville, the lord of that manor, having made the adjoining stronghold at 

 Pleshey his seat already. Next in importance are the vineyards planted 

 by Ranulf Peverel at Debden and at Stebbing. At both these places, 

 which follow one another in Domesday, the vineyards were new, so 

 new indeed that only half was in bearing at either place. There remain 

 only the small vineyards of the two dapiferi, Eudo and Hamo, of whom 

 the former had planted, at Mundon, two arpents since the Conquest, and 

 the latter one arpent at Stambourne or Toppesfield. 2 



Among the live stock mentioned in the second volume of Domesday 

 are the bees, whose importance then was far greater than now. There 

 are numerous entries of rents paid partly in honey in the other volume 

 of Domesday, especially on Crown demesne. 3 ' Bee-culture reached, to 

 all appearances, a high state of cultivation among the Anglo-Saxons, and 

 was held in peculiar regard by the people as the chief element in a 

 favourite drink.'* But it was not only for mead that bees had to be kept. 

 From them was obtained also wax for the church, and the only substitute 

 then available for our own sugar. A careful analysis of the entries 

 suggests no conclusions save that hives appear to have been far more 

 common in the north than in the south of the county. Their numbers 

 fluctuated, we find, greatly ; but this may have been sometimes due to 

 mere shifting of the hives, as where we read of Prating and St. Osyth, 

 which had the same under-tenant, that there were six hives at Prating 

 where there had been none, and none at St. Osyth's where there had 

 been six (fo. 75^). 



From the laity we turn to the clergy and their glebes. It was only 

 with the clergy as holders of land that Domesday was really concerned, 



1 See p. 346, note I. 



* In later days one of the manors in West Thurrock is said to have been actually called ' Le Vyne- 

 yard' (Morant). At Ashdon there was an 'acre' of vineyard in 1086. * See p. 420 below. 



4 Andrews' The OU English Manor, p. 206. Compare p. 3 3 5 above. 



383 



