A HISTORY OF ESSEX 



that they were not annual renders at all, but ' certain annual instalments 

 which were being paid by the burgesses for the purchase of the lease of 

 the mint from the king,' in fact, ' that the burgesses or grantees of the 

 mint were paying a fine for their charter of the privilege.' l For the 

 language used in the Ipswich entry is decisively opposed to this solution. 

 High payments, indeed, from mints were not exceptional in Domesday ; 

 Gloucester and Leicester paid 20, and Lincoln as much as 75. 



Coins of the Conqueror with the names of four Colchester moneyers 

 are known. These four are Wulfric, ./Elfsige, Wulfwine * and Derman. 3 

 Under Henry I. the names of Wulfwine and ./Elfsige recur on Colchester 

 coins, while those of Edward and Sasgrim (?) make their appearance. 4 

 Of these names I recognize as holders of houses in the Survey, Wulfric, 

 ./Elfsige, Wulfwine and Derman, while we also find a Sacrim' and a 

 Sagrim', but one ought to add that these names, the last excepted, are 

 hardly distinctive enough for identification, and appear, moreover, to 

 have been borne by several burgesses. Extreme caution is needed in 

 dealing with the question of jirma^ but the language of Domesday 

 appears to leave us in no doubt that the burgesses themselves were called 

 upon to find the fixed annual sum of 40, instead of the moneyers being 

 liable, as at Ipswich, for the payment. The Thetford entry leaves us, 

 perhaps, in some doubt on the point, though the borough itself there 

 appears as responsible. 



We have yet to deal with two payments, one of which is of great 

 interest, and apparently, in its actual form, unique in Domesday. The 

 first of these was due on ' the quinzaine of Easter ' (quintodecimo die post 

 pascham) yearly, and was a fixed sum of i 6s. 8*/. due from ' the King's 

 burgesses,' and included in the ferm ; it may possibly represent the 

 commutation of a due. The other, which was over and above the ferm, 

 was a payment of sixpence from each house, and was connected with 

 military service. Like other passages in this survey, it is by no means 

 free from obscurity, but, bearing in mind that it had to be paid every 

 year, we may, I think, safely render it as meaning that the proceeds of 

 this payment could be applied either to the mercenary soldiers (so/Marios) 

 or to the expenses of the national ' landfyrd ' or ' scypfyrd ' 6 (expetitionem 

 terra ve / ma ris) , but that it had to be paid whether the king engaged 

 soldiers or called out the fyrd or not. 9 We have a payment at Exeter 

 ' ad opus militum,' for which the ' Exon Domesday ' gives ' ad soldarios,' 

 and in the Dorset boroughs we have entries of payments ' ad opus 



1 Numismatic Chronicle, ser. 4, i. 423. 



8 He had coined here also under Harold (Archeeok&a, iv. 363). * Ibid. xxvi. 96. 



* Numismatic Chronicle, ser. 4, i. 166-7. 



8 dnglo-Saxon Chronicle, anno 999. See the Victoria History of Hampshire, \. 248-9. At Bedford the 

 phrase is ' in expeditione et in navibus ' ; at Stamford, ' in exercitu et navigio ' ; at Leicester we read, 

 ' Quando rex ibat in exercitu per terram ... si vero per mare in hostem ibat ' ; at Exeter, ' Quando 

 expeditio ibat per terram aut per mare ' ; at Wilton, ' Quando rex ibat in expeditione vel terra 

 vel mari.' 



6 For in some places the composition only applied to occasions when the host was actually 

 called out. 



422 



