236 THE DOMESDAY INQUEST 



Evidently the produce of the demesne was not converted 

 into money, but stored up for consumption by the countess 

 in the place where it was grown. And it is not impossible 

 that the frequent journey ings of the Court, in the early Middle 

 Ages, were due to its custom of consuming the food grown 

 on the royal manors in or near the place where it was pro- 

 duced. If this was the custom in the thirteenth century, it 

 was most probably also the custom in the eleventh century, 

 especially as, in the earlier period, there was a lack of coined 

 money and markets ; and there is one passage which has 

 this custom in view. Speaking of Playden (Sussex), Domes- 

 day Book says, " The whole manor was worth 6 T. R. E., 

 now H2/-. But what the Count has thence is worth 7 $s" 1 

 So that the values represent cases in which the produce of 

 the demesne farm was supplied for the use of the owner 

 of the estate, and was not converted into money. Very pos- 

 sibly, in reckoning the value of this produce, it was reckoned 

 on an antiquated scale, and not at market values. 



But included in these values were sundry payments in 

 cash. The rents of the mill and the meadows and of the 

 socage tenants are very often mentioned in places where only 

 the values are given, and must therefore have been included 

 in such values. The bailiffs' accounts of the thirteenth century 

 show that the bailiffs received other payments besides the 

 produce of the demesne, the gafol of the tenants, and the 

 rents of the mill, the meadows, and the wood. The Stoughton 

 account shows a sum -of $ $s. qd. received from the per- 

 quisites of the court, which included the value of two cows 

 received as a heriot from Lettice, the wife of Thomas Froude. 

 The issues of the courts of the thirty-six manors, the accounts 

 of which are entered in the Pipe Roll of the bishopric of 

 Winchester for the year ending Michaelmas, 1208, amounted 

 to 200 17 s. 6d. out of a total receipt of 2720, or about 

 7 per cent, of the whole. Of course, it is possible that the 

 1 D. B., I. 20 a i. 



