156 THE DOMESDAY INQUEST 



by Dr. Liebermann, and printed in the first volume of Dr. 

 Cunningham's Growth of English Industry and Commerce ; 

 it was his duty to superintend the working of the manor ; to 

 take charge of the stock, and account for sales ; to see that 

 the labour dues were duly rendered, and the work properly 

 performed. The bailiff's accounts of the thirteenth and 

 following centuries are perfect mines of information as to 

 wages and prices, and are the foundation of Thorold Roger's 

 History of Agriculture and Prices. The reeve was usually 

 one of the villans on the estate, and was elected by his fellows. 

 He was rewarded for his services by a small allowance in 

 money, and by entire release from the services which other- 

 wise would have been rendered by him in respect of his hold- 

 ing. Domesday Book tells us that the Reeve of Tangmere 

 received 2os. 1 The pre-Conquest bailiff of the Manor of Lene 

 was accustomed to present the wife of Earl Morcar, when 

 she visited the manor, with 18 ounces of pennies, "that she 

 might be of joyful mind," and her steward and other servants 

 received 30^. from him. 2 The bedell was an assistant to 

 the reeve, but he appears very rarely in the thirteenth-century 

 accounts. Other manorial officials were the smiths, of whom 

 sixty-four are recorded in Domesday Book. He, too, in later 

 centuries, was exempted from the services due from his hold- 

 ing, on account of his doing the repairs in the ploughs and other 

 dead stock of the manor. Two carpenters were mentioned as 

 living at Utbech, 3 and there was a ditcher (fossarius) who held 

 half a hide at Berkhampstead. 4 But the largest section in this 

 miscellaneous group was that of the swineherds, of whom Sir 

 Henry Ellis counts 427. Later, when we come to speak of 

 the live stock, we shall see the important part that the large 

 herds of swine played in the economy of the eleventh century. 

 Almost as important as the swineherds were the fishermen 

 (in) and salt-workers (108), but of them, too, we shall speak 



1 D. B., I. 16 a i. 2 Id., I. 179 b 2. 



3 Id., I. 202 a i. 4 Id., I. 136 b 2. 



