SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC 



HISTORY 



PERHAPS the most remarkable feature of the economic history of 

 Sussex is the variety and scope of its interest. The county which 

 to-day is almost wholly agricultural has in former ages drawn its 

 wealth from the most widely different sources. In the eleventh 

 century, when most of the country was as yet densely wooded and fed large 

 herds of swine, one of the chief sources of the landlord's income and the 

 staple article of the peasant's food, 1 the Sussex boroughs were already 

 obtaining importance as trading and shipping centres. 2 Owing to the 

 extraordinarily changing character of the coast-line and river beds, Sussex has 

 long ceased to be a county of famous ports ; the silting up of the rivers and 

 harbours destroyed the mercantile importance of Chichester, Shoreham, 

 Lewes, Seaford, Pevensey, Hastings, and Rye, while storms and high seas 

 played a more sudden, if not a greater, havoc with Winchelsea, and brought 

 disaster upon the agricultural population of Iham and Iden and other places 

 along the coast. 3 



The extent of these inundations may be gathered from the fact that the 

 marshes of 'Wytfleet' and ' Reyner ' in Iham, once held by free tenants 

 owing rents and suit of court, in 1291 returned nothing quia totaliter submer- 

 guntur, while Iden ferry, once worth 3.?. a year, had vanished, owing to the 

 flooding of the marsh lands between which it had plied. 4 The marshes, 

 however, where they could be reclaimed and cultivated were even in the 

 middle ages of high value, thus in the manor of Bexhill an acre of marsh land 

 was valued at I2*/., while an acre of meadow was only worth 3^. or 6</. 5 

 At Iden 74 acres of marsh were worth as much as 2s. 6d. an acre, and 

 1 6 acres of brook land i8</. each, ' dum tamen salvari possunt a submersione 

 maris,' whereas the arable land was only valued at 6</., %d. or is." Similarly 

 in the Pevensey Levels in 1517, the prior of Lewes paid twice as much 

 towards the ' royal service ' for marsh land as for land ' lyinge oute of y e 

 mershe called Uplond.' '" It is probable, therefore, that the ultimate gain in 



1 V.C.H. Suss. i, 365. ' Ibid. 351. 



3 Cf. for destruction of the property of monasteries and churches, V.C.H. Suss, ii, ' Religious Houses' and 

 ' Ecclesiastical History.' 



4 P.R.O. Rentals and Surv. R. 660 ; cf. also ibid. 667, and Mins. Accts. bdle. 1032, No. 8, for further 

 destruction of Iham in the reign of Edw. III. 



6 Custumal of Battle Abbey (Camd. Soc.), 24. 6 P.R.O. Rentals and Surv. R. 660. 



to Duchy of Lane. Misc. Bks. vol. 10. In these Pevensey marshes the custom as early as 1260 was 

 that the part owner of a piece of land might inclose it against the sea, and if his partners would not 

 contribute towards the cost might retain the land until they had paid their share ; Assize R. 912, m. \(>d. 

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