A HISTORY OF ESSEX 



extort from the burgesses a sum unduly large. But Colchester, after all, 

 was not alone in its grievance. Then, as in much later days, towns 

 complained of the excessive ' ferm ' exacted from them by the Crown or 

 its agents ; but in 1086 there was reason for such complaint. Ipswich, 

 like Colchester, appears to have paid, under Edward the Confessor, 

 rather over 15 a year ; Roger Bigot, the sheriff of Suffolk, farmed it 

 out under William for 40, but was compelled to reduce the amount to 

 37, as the money could not be paid. Thetford, which had suffered 

 heavily by the Conquest, was nevertheless compelled to pay nearly /^Se- 

 as against 30 before the Normans came. Norwich, which had also 

 suffered heavily, had to submit to a similar increase, about 100 a year 

 being exacted from it in 1086. Again, in Essex, there were rural 

 manors, especially on the king's demesne, which were farmed out for 

 exorbitant sums at the time of the Survey. 1 These examples help us to 

 understand the figures given for Colchester, although, if they are 

 accurately given, its case was eminently hard. Under the Confessor it 

 had paid only, as a commutation for the king's dues, 15 $s. ^d. a year, 

 out of which the moneyers provided 4. At the time of the Survey 

 it was paying 80, besides some minor payments, which will be dis- 

 cussed below ; and what made the grievance worse was that the local 

 mint no longer contributed to the payment, but was now separately 

 farmed at an exorbitant rent. 



The reader must again be warned that the text is somewhat corrupt, 

 and that, even allowing for Norman exaction, the figures are strangely 

 high in view of the fact that in the next century the town's firma was 

 40, which included, as under the Confessor, the payment for the mint. 

 The minor payments spoken of above as exacted in addition to the 80 

 were in the first place 6 sestiers of honey, 2 an archaic due common in 

 towns. Ipswich and Norwich had both been liable to provide the same 

 amount, and Thetford had provided 4 sestiers. Oxford and Warwick had 

 each to supply 6 sestiers a year, and the entry under Warwick that the 

 sestier was valued at 1 5 pence leads us to view with some suspicion the 

 statement in the Colchester survey that 40 shillings was the commutation 

 for the 6 sestiers. Moreover, an unintelligible ' iiii ' follows this estimate, 

 which may either refer to the obscure consuetudines mellis spoken of at 

 Ipswich and elsewhere, or may be simply a corruption. 



The next addition to the 80 is the curious payment ' for feeding 

 the prebendaries,' which appears to be peculiar to the towns of the three 

 eastern counties. At Colchester it is IQJ. 8</., at Ipswich 8j., at Thet- 

 ford i6j. and at Norwich 2 is. \d. No significance may at first sight 

 be suggested by these figures, but it will be found that they are based 

 upon a unit of 32 pence, of which units Ipswich pays three, Colchester 

 four, Thetford six and Norwich eight. And this unit represents 2 

 ounces (orce) at 1 6 pence (instead of 20 pence) to the ounce. 3 



1 See p. 363 above. 8 See, for honey, p. 383 above. 



3 Compare Inyuisitio comitatus CatitaMgiemis, p. 41, and p. 386 above with p. 432 note 9 below. 



420 



