THE DOMESDAY SURVEY 
point relating to the woodland, namely that at Southill there are two 
entries of ‘half a hide’ of woodland, and at Sandy one of three acres. 
The reckoning of woodland on this system is rare in Domesday, and at 
present obscure. 
Among miscellaneous rural features we may note Eudo Dapifer’s 
two acres of vineyard—probably newly planted—at Eaton Socon, Hugh 
de Beauchamp’s ‘ park’ for beasts of the chase at Stagsden, and the fish- 
stew (vivarium piscium) of ‘Osbern the fisher’ at Sharnbrook. 
Of urban or commercial life Domesday tells us little ; and in Bed- 
fordshire this is peculiarly the case. We read of burgesses of Bedford, of 
market dues at Luton and Leighton (Buzzard), and that is about all. 
But in this connection one may note a point bearing on money, namely 
that two ‘ ores’ are entered as the value of some land on fo. 218b. It is 
proved by Cambridgeshire evidence that this ‘ ore’ was sixteen pence. 
No general statement can be made as to the effect of the Conquest 
on the wealth and prosperity of the county. Mr. Pearson’s tables show a 
decrease of about twenty-five per cent in values, for the whole county, 
when those of 1086 are compared with those on the eve of the Conquest ; 
and this decrease is most marked on the lands of the lay barons. But when 
we come to examine for ourselves the values, manor by manor, we find 
the variations between them at these two periods, and at that intervening 
date when the land was received by the grantee, varying in too erratic a 
fashion for any conclusions to be drawn from them. Ill that can be said 
is that the value was, as might be expected, usually lowest at the time of 
the grant. 
The last subject that we have to consider is that of identification. 
When dealing with the work of our predecessors in this branch of inquiry, 
we have to remember that they are sometimes found to have been misled 
by a fancied resemblance, and that they may even have fallen a prey to 
the pranks of perverse etymologists. Weston and Easton, for instance, 
are names not uncommon, the origin of which, one would have thought, 
must be obvious to all. Yet of Westoning—originally Weston—omitted 
in the Bedfordshire survey, we find Mr. Airy writing thus :— 
Westoning is not mentioned in the Record, nor is there any vacancy in or on 
the borders of the Hundred of Manshead for which it appears eligible. Early men- 
tion of it occurs by the name of Weston Tregos, and it became Weston-Ing after its 
purchase by Sir William Inge, Chief Justice of the King’s Bench in 1317, so that the 
original name of the place is merely Weston. Now, Mr. Monkhouse in his Bedford- 
shire etymologies tells us that Weston in Anglo-Saxon means a wilderness ; and that 
all the ‘ Westons ’ and ‘ West Ends’ were tracts of waste and barren land. If such 
were the case with the present Westoning, its absence from the Record as a distinct 
manor or property is quite intelligible ; and looking at its position on the map I am 
inclined to think that it formed the ‘westen’ or waste of Priestley (now a hamlet of 
Flitwick), and that whatever there was of taxable value about it is included in the 
return of that manor (p. 44). 
So too he endeavoured to identify the mysterious ‘ Estone’ by means 
of this etymology, arguing that ‘the high clay table of Little Staughton 
. . . was one of a series of westens,’ and that— 
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