A HISTORY OF DEVONSHIRE 



in Devonshire is 3361b. or 3 cwt. ; a seam of straw is 2241b. or 2 cwt. 

 A seam or pack of wool was 17 stone and 2 Ib.^ The Domesday seam of salt 

 or fish was probably the last-named quantity or 240 lb.* 



The holders of land in Domesday may be divided into three classes : 

 first the king, who was regarded as the ultimate owner of all the land in the 

 kingdom/ but who also held certain estates which had never been booked to 

 subjects as his inland or demesne, either for the support of the crown or for 

 county purposes, besides a few which had formerly been booked to subjects 

 but had come into his hands either by forfeiture or escheat. Next stand the 

 great and small landholders to whom estates had been booked or given by 

 charter, churches, barons, and knights, all holding, by military service or else 

 in free alms, and tenants by special service about the king's court or person 

 {servientes), whether military, household, or estate service. Then thirdly 

 comes the peasant class, the agricultural workers of different sorts, villeins 

 with their one or two ferlings each, bordars * with their tenements and single 

 acre or half-acre plots,^ landless coscets, cottagers (cotarh), &nd slaves employed 

 chiefly in labour on the lord's demesne, besides boors {i>uri) or half-freemen 

 [coliberti) * on a few estates, and in one single case a bondwoman.'' The 

 king's lands and the estates of his barons, knights, and officials are described 

 in full in the pages of the survey. But there is no detailed description of 

 the lands cultivated by the peasant class. It is only stated what part of the 

 assessment they bear. Occupying as they do at the lord's will, they are not 

 said to hold land at all {tenere), but only to be settled upon it {manere in)!' 



The foremost place among the king's lands is occupied by a list of 

 nineteen estates described in the heading as ' The King's demesne (dominicatus) 

 in Devonshire belonging to the kingdom.' It includes nearly half of the 

 original centres of Saxon settlement in the county, the demesne manors to 

 which the manors of the hundred formed the fee.' They are usually 

 called ancient demesnes of the crown. On these estates the villagers and 

 other occupiers held their tenements as folkland, not as bookland, and subject 

 to fixed and heavy payments.^" The commissioners do not value these estates, 

 but specify the amounts which were actually paid by them towards the king's 

 supply service (Jirma). Compared with other counties the amounts are 

 small. Nineteen manors together paid ^(^232 a year. If the value of Bampton 

 is added the total comes to ^^253, not more than was paid in some places as 

 supplies for two and a half nights. It must, however, be borne in mind that 



' Phillips, in 1706, and Simmonds, Dictionary of Trade Weights ; ex inform. Mr. Elworthy. 



' Mr. E. T. Elworthy informs me that 'a pack or horse-load (seam) of wool is properly 240 lb., but in 

 certain parts and of certain kinds is sometimes sold as 2441b., and was once as much as 252 lb.' The same 

 authority tells me that in old Somerset leases which provided that so many seams of rotten dung were to be 

 expended it was usually stipulated that such seams should be 12 score lb. and no more, i.e. 2401b. 



' Freeman, Norman Conquest, v, 20, 45 ; iv, 27. 



* Bordars = those having a ' bordellum ' {Liber Niger, 382). 

 ' Trans. Devon Assoc, zxviii, 369. 



*'Buri' are only once mentioned in Devon at Burrington (fol. 179), where they come after slaves. 

 Maitland {Domesday and Beyond, 36) and Round {f. C. H. Warw. i, 384) say that * buri ' = ' coliberti.' ' Coli- 

 berti' are named at Werrington (fol. 98) and Broad Clyst (fol. 95). 



' At Uppacot in North Tawton (fol. 475). 



* At Witheridge (fol. 96) : ' These ferlings I plough can till and upon them 3 villeins are settled (/» 

 istis manent).' At Tossel's barton in East Buckland (fol. 1291^) : ' Drogo has i ferling and i plough(land) in 

 demesne and upon the other ferling a serf is settled {manet).' At Bovey Tracey (fol. 135) : ' To, this manor 

 the land of 1 5 thanes has been added . One is called On-down-Bovey, and there 4 thanes were settled.' 



° Trans. Devon Assoc, xxvii, 198, ». 56. " Ibid, xxx, 298. 



388 



