CHAPTER XI 

 THE STOCK. ELEVENTH-CENTURY FARMING 



ALTHOUGH no specific question on the point was put 

 to the Cambridgeshire jurors, the Cambridgeshire 

 Inquest shows that they made returns of the stock on 

 the demesne of the manor they were describing. Thus on 

 the demesne of the manor of Kennet, Nicholas had five 

 teams, eight head of "otiose" (non-ploughing) cattle, four 

 horses (" runcini "), ten pigs, and 480 sheep. Similar details 

 are contained in the second volume of Domesday Book for 

 the three eastern counties, and in the Exeter Domesday for 

 certain estates in the south-western counties. Open the 

 Essex Domesday at hazard. On Count Eustace's estate 

 at Tey, he had, in 1086, two teams in demesne, and his men 

 had four teams ; 160 pigs could be fed in the wood, and the 

 meadow was 20 acres in extent. Besides his teams, he had 

 three horses, seven oxen, sixty- eight pigs, eighty sheep, and 

 thirty-four goats. 1 But the record says nothing about the 

 stock belonging to his tenants. 



We have seen that the area of an estate is expressed by 

 the number of teams it employed. Let us therefore take 

 as examples the first estates, with three teams each in de- 

 mesne, in the eight counties for which the statistics of stock 

 are given 



1 D. B., II. 29 b. 

 20 1 



