THE DOMESDAY SURVEY 



Another of the extra payments was 5 to the sheriff ' de gersuma.' 

 This phrase is one which is always difficult to translate, but the amount 

 is recognizable as that which a town or a county is sometimes entered 

 in Domesday as paying to the queen. Norwich, in 1086, was paying 

 5 a year ' de gersuma regine,' and Warwickshire the same ' reginas pro 

 gersuma.' 5 a year also was paid to the queen as a gift by Worcester- 

 shire and by Northamptonshire. The county of Oxfordshire also paid 

 5 ' de gersumma reginje.' But, in spite of this association of the $ 

 with the queen, I should look upon the payment at Colchester as akin 

 to that which the sheriff received from some royal manors in the 

 county, 1 and as consideration money for his exclusion from thejirma. 



The payments we have just been considering were made in addition 

 to the ferm, and Domesday is careful to explain that the render in 

 respect of the mint was also, at the time of the Survey, over and above 

 the ferm. 



The passage relating to the local mint is, no doubt, difficult. It 

 has been recently discussed by Mr. Andrew,* but I cannot agree with 

 his conclusions. To understand it we must study it in conjunction with 

 the mint entries for Ipswich and for Thetford. At Ipswich, as at 

 Colchester, the moneyers had paid 4 a year under the Confessor, but 

 their annual payment had been raised to 20 at the time of the Survey, 

 though they were greatly in arrears. 8 At Colchester, as I read the 

 passage, the annual payment had been similarly raised to 20, though 

 the burgesses of Maldon shared the burden.* But, as at Ipswich, the 

 payment seems to have proved too heavy, for the burgesses claim that 

 the king (or his fermor) had remitted half of it. Nevertheless, they say, 

 Bishop Walchelin, their fermor, is exacting from them 40.' Enormous 

 as this demand may seem, Thetford was actually paying for its mint no 

 less a sum than this at the time of the Survey. 8 



It must be admitted, however, that sums so large as these are 

 difficult to explain, for at Thetford, as Mr. Andrew points out, the sum 

 of 4 a year was eventually remitted in express compensation of the loss 

 of four moneyers, while at Colchester 3 a year was similarly remitted 

 * in defectu monetariorum ' under Henry II. down to his thirteenth year 

 (1167), when the amount rises to 4, which, we have seen, was the 

 annual render from the moneyers at Colchester, as at Ipswich, under 

 Edward the Confessor. 7 Yet, inexplicably large as are the renders due 

 in 1086, I cannot agree with Mr. Andrew when he 'boldly' suggests 



1 See p. 363 above. 



* Numiimatif Chronicle, ser. 4, i. 161-2. 



3 ' Monetarii reddebant per annum T.R.E. iiii libras pro moneta ; modo debent reddere xx libras ; 

 ted de quatuor annis non reddiderunt nisi xxvii libras ' (fo. 290^). 



* Coins of this period were issued from the Maldon mint. 



5 ' Reddebant monetarii iiii libras T.R.E. . . . Et preter hoc reddunt burgenses de Colecestra et 

 de Melduna xx libras pro moneta ; et hoc constituit Waleramus ; et advocant regem adturtorem quod 

 condonavit illis x libras ; et ten' Walchelinus ep[is]c[opus] querit ab illas xl libras.' 



* ' Reddit etiam modo regi xl libras de moneta ' (fo. 1 1 9). 



7 It is evident that at Colchester and at Norwich in the twelfth century the remission of I a year 

 represented the loss of one moneyer. 



421 



