VALUES AND RENDERS 235 



could exact the uttermost farthing, and even more than his 

 dues. Such harshness we have already seen in the eastern 

 counties in connection with the sokemen and the freeholders, 

 and "if they do such things in a green tree, what will be 

 done in the dry ? " 



Another explanation is suggested by a passage in the 

 Dialogus de Scaccario 



" As we have learnt from our fathers, in the primitive state of 

 the Kingdom after the Conquest, the Kings received from their 

 estates, not weights of silver and gold, but victuals alone, from which 

 necessaries were furnished for the daily use of the Royal house- 

 hold. . . . But when these were paid according to the accustomed 

 manner, the royal officials gave credit to the sheriff, reducing them 

 into sums of pennies : for instance, for a measure of wheat to make 

 bread for 100 men, one shilling; for the carcase of an ox, one 

 shilling; for a ram or ewe, fourpence; for fodder for 20 horses, 

 also fourpence." 1 



This appears to show that when a bailiff delivered rents in 

 kind to the King, they were valued at prices far below the 

 market value ; but a lessee would turn them into money at 

 the market value, and so could afford to pay a rent exceeding 

 the nominal value. 



Reference has been made to the " firma unius noctis," to 

 the " gwestva," or food rent paid to the Welsh chieftains, and 

 to the payment of rent in kind to the Canons of St. Paul's 

 and to the monks of Abingdon and Malmesbury. The Liber 

 Niger shows that the Abbey of Peterborough received a large 

 quantity of corn from its tenants ; and Bishop Grostete 

 advised the Countess of Lincoln 



" Every year at Michaelmas, when you know the measure of all 

 your corn, then arrange your sojourn for the whole year, and for 

 how many weeks you shall sojourn in each place . . . but so arrange 

 your sojourns that the place at your departure shall not remain in 

 debt." 2 



1 Dialogue de Scaccario, i. 7. - Walter of Henley, 145. 



