i92 THE DOMESDAY INQUEST 



followed Domesday Book comprise many gifts of tithes of 

 small pieces of land. of a virgate, and so on. The Chartulary 

 of Burton Abbey shows that when the monks granted lands 

 on lease, they often bargained that the tithes from the other 

 lands of the lessees should be paid to them ; * and in 1075 

 William of Braiose gave to the church of St. Nicholas of 

 Bramber 6 hides of land, and the tithes of Erringham, South- 

 wick, Shoreham, and some sixteen other places in the valley 

 of the Adur, and the tithes of the toll of Steyning and of 

 Bramber Castle. 2 



A third source of the income of the village priests was the 

 dues " the customary payments of the living and the dead," 

 as they were called at Mottisfont ; and of these the most impor- 

 tant were the dues known as "sepulture" and "church-shot." 



Of sixteen estates in the neighbourhood of Taunton it is 

 recorded that "when the lords of these lands die, they are 

 buried at Taunton ; " 3 and sepulture was a due paid to the 

 mother church at Thorney and also at Bishamton (Worcs.). 4 

 Evidently by this word is meant a due payable to the church 

 for burial in the churchyard. Nowadays the burial authori- 

 ties are anxious to discourage burials in their burial-grounds, 

 and charge heavier fees to non-parishioners, so that the burial- 

 ground may be kept for the use of the parish for which it is 

 provided. In the eleventh century the cases of Taunton and 

 Thorney show that the authorities kept a keen watch that the 

 church to which a man belonged should not be defrauded of 

 its fees by his burial elsewhere ; evidently these fees were valu- 

 able, and the monastic chartularies show their value. In 1088 

 Ramsey Abbey granted a lease of its manor of Over, and 

 stipulated that when the lessee died he should be buried at 

 Ramsey, and a payment made to the abbey of 100^., or a 

 mark of gold. 5 In the earliest lease in the Domesday of St. 



1 E. H. ./?., 1905, p. 282. 2 Cal. Doc., France, 405. 



3 D. B., I. 87 b i. 4 D. B., I. 173 a i. 



5 Ramsey Chart., i. 120. 



