A HISTORY OF WORCESTERSHIRE 



woodland in the country. On the other hand, it is possible, and even 

 probable, that the woodland then, as in later times, was measured by a 

 larger perch than that which was in common use ; but our knowledge 

 of the measures then prevailing in different districts, and for different 

 purposes, is too slight to enable us to speak with confidence on this 

 point. In any case it will be obvious to intelligent students of the 

 Survey that measurement in such terms as these could be only of a 

 crude nature, and that we cannot accept it as more than a rough 

 estimate.^ 



Several fisheries are mentioned, but their value was not great. 

 Their proceeds, contrary to what might be expected, are always, when men- 

 tioned, eels, of which Martley annually supplied nearly three thousand. 

 This number was quite exceptional, and it was more usual to find a mill 

 liable for a small render of eels from the mill pool. There is a curious 

 incidental allusion to the method of fishing, at the time, in the Severn 

 in the story which the monks of Worcester tell of Ribbesford (near 

 Bewdley). The villeins there had been bound, they said, to make for 

 them hedges to capture fish.^ This ancient practice is described by Mr. 

 Seebohm, who aptly quotes a statute relating to the Severn and Wye 

 fisheries : ' If any person shall make, erect, or set any bank, dam, hedge, 

 stank, or net across the same.' ^ He observed that the Tidenham 

 custumal binds the geneat (the later ' villein ') to do his share of ' weir- 

 building,' and mentions that ' this clumsy process of catching salmon is 

 the ancient traditional method used in the Wye and Severn fisheries,' 

 and was kept up tenaciously.* 



All sources of revenue, however, were dwarfed in importance by 

 the plough. The Inquisitio Eliensis contains what are usually taken to 

 represent the instructions given to the Domesday Commissioners ; ^ and, 

 although this cannot be asserted as a fact,* it is probably true in sub- 

 stance. In this passage the Commissioners are described as having 

 inquired ' how many ploughs are in demesne, how many the men have, 

 and if more can be had (from the land) than is (now) had." The 

 Worcestershire Survey does not tell us, as we are told in many coun- 

 ties, how many 'plough-lands' an estate contained;^ but it normally 

 enters the number of ploughs in (the lord's) demesne, and then tells 

 us how many were held by the various tenants. If more ploughs 

 could be employed on the estate, the fact is mentioned, and the 



* The question of forest measures is also dealt with in the introduction to the Domes- 

 day Survey in the Victoria History of Northamptonshire. 



' ' Captatorias sepes piscium et alias venatorias instaurare debita lege debebant ' 

 (Heming's Cartulary, I. 256). 

 ^ I Geo. I. cap. 18, sec. 14. 



* English Village Community, pp. 153—5. 



* See Domesday Book (Ed. Record Commission), III. 497 ; Stubbs, Select Charters and 

 Const. Hist. (1874), I. 385-6; Ramsay's Foundations of England, II. 129, and other works. 



® See Feudal England, pp. 133-5. 



' 'quot carruce in dominio, quot hominum, . . . et si potest plus haberi quam 

 habeatur.* 



^ Except in two or three exceptional cases noted in the text. 

 272 



