A HISTORY OF WORCESTERSHIRE 



300 cartloads, which produced 300 ' mits ' of salt. This was probably 

 the usual proportion, for a ' salina ' of the Bishop is entered as producing 

 '100 "mits" of salt for 100 cartloads of wood ' (fo. 173^). The monks 

 of Westminster also obtained 100 ' mits,' and sent 100 cartloads of wood 

 from (Martin) Hussingtree (fo. 174^). Three measures seem to have 

 been used for the salt produced, namely the horse-load {sutnma), the 

 ' sestier ' [sextarium), and the ' mit ' (jnitta). The meaning of the last, a 

 local word, has been, fortunately, preserved for us by Habington in a 

 passage which explains several of the words used by Domesday in this 

 connection : 



The saltwater drawne out of the wells is in a singular proportion of Justyce con- 

 veyghed into seates called anciently Salina . . . wheare after it is boyled in 

 leaden pans and converted to salt, it is dryed in barowes made of twigs and sally, 

 somewhat open, so as the moysture may run from the salt. Foure of these barowes, 

 conteygninge about towe bushells of Salt are named a Mit} 



The Worcestershire woodlands were of value for more than as a 

 source of fuel for the saltworks. Their uses are suggestively described 

 in the cases of two of the Bishop's manors. At Fladbury, besides the 

 wood for Droitwich, he had the hunting and the honey (as he also had at 

 Bredon) ; in Malvern chase he used to have, in the woods belonging to 

 his manors of Ripple and Upton, the hunting and the honey, and still 

 had ' the pannage and (wood for) firing and for repairs.' In another of 

 his manors it is mentioned that his tenant at Whittington had ' only 

 woodland (sufficient) for firing' (fo. 173). Pannage was a source of 

 substantial profit when great herds of swine were kept to provide the 

 pork of which such large quantities were then salted for food. Stretch- 

 ing back from Hanley (Castle) were woods from which six swineherds 

 brought to their lord the king sixty swine a year (fo. i^ob). On the 

 other side of the county, at Inkberrow, the bishop of Hereford received 

 a hundred from a broad stretch of woodland (fo. 174). Crowle, in the 

 heart of the county, had 'woodland for a hundred swine' (fo. ij6b). 

 Honey was a product of more importance in those days than now. The 

 great royal manor of Pershore, under Edward the Confessor, had supplied 

 50 sestiers of honey, in addition to its money-rent. A rent of one sestier 

 of honey was still paid at the time of Domesday by a mill at Cleeve 

 (Priors), by a priestly tenant at Witley, and by each of three ' coliberts ' 

 at Powick, while a freeman at Wolverley paid two sestiers as his rent. 

 Nor was the honey that of wild bees only ; at Suckley (fo. i%ob) we 

 find a bee-master [castas apium) with twelve hives.^ Mr. Seebohm has 



^ Habyngton's Survey, II. 297. In Halli well's Dictionary of Archaic fVords, he cites 

 Kennett (MS. Lansd. 1,033) ^'^ ''^^ effect that 'At Nantwich and Droitwich, the conical 

 baskets wherein they put the salt to let the water drain from it are called barrows. A barrow 

 contained about six pecks.' This would make the ' Mit ' about six bushels — a very different 

 reckoning. It should be added that a ' Mit ' was considered equivalent to a horse-load 

 according to Hale's Registrum (34(7), ' invenient singulis annis equos diebus Dominicis ad 

 portandum sal de Wich apud Wigorniam . . . quilibet equus portabit unam mittam.' 



^ This was the old English ' beo-ceorl,' on whom see the valuable remarks in Andrews' 

 Old English Manor, pp. 205-8. 



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