A HISTORY OF DEVONSHIRE 



Totnes there were ninety-five within the borough and fifteen employed as 

 labourers without.^ At Barnstaple the bishop of Coutances had ten burgesses 

 who paid him 3J. gd'., besides seven houses in ruins/ Baldwin had seven 

 burgesses besides six houses in ruins which between them paid him ys. bd.^ 

 and Drogo had a fruit-garden [ortus) which went with the manor of East Bray/ 

 At Totnes all the burgesses and labourers were Juhel's/ At Lydford the 

 burgesses without were half as many again as those within the borough/ 

 Among their holdings must be included Fernworthy near Chagford, which 

 though many miles off still belongs to the borough of Lydford/ Each of these 

 three boroughs paid ^^3 annually to the king. At Barnstaple he kept £2 

 out of the j^3 for himself, giving ;^i to the bishop of Coutances as lord of 

 the honour/ At Lydford he kept the whole amount, and at Totnes he gave 

 the whole amount to Juhel, who soon raised it to £'&\ 



When after the Conquest the castle took the place of the co-operative 

 stronghold, boroughs ceased to be strongholds and became places of privileged 

 government and market centres only. Perhaps the earliest borough of this 

 kind was that at Okehampton. ' On that land,' says the record, ' stands the 

 castle of Okehampton. There Baldwin has four burgesses and a market 

 paying 4J. a year' (fol. 288). The Okehampton burgesses therefore paid 

 IS. apiece for the market privilege. Only one other market is mentioned 

 in Devonshire. 'At Otterton is a market on Sundays' (fol. 194/^). Judging 

 by the large number of thirty-three saltworkers there, may we infer that 

 Otterton market was chiefly a market for salt, and that the market was held 

 at Sidmouth ? 



The record only mentions one castle in Devonshire, that of Okehampton, 

 but it is well known that at the time of the survey a castle also existed at 

 Exeter, for the canons of St. Mary (within the castle) are named as estate- 

 holders (fol. 307^). Mr. Freeman also finds reference to Exeter Castle in the 

 mention of ruined houses there (fol. 88). These, he says, had been pulled 

 down to provide a site for the castle.^" A castle also perhaps existed at Totnes, 

 and soon after at Plympton and Tiverton. The record further mentions the 

 castle of Cornwall as having been given by the bishop to the count of Mortain 

 in exchange for Haxon and Benton (fol. 118), but this was outside our 

 county. 



The whole of Devonshire, excepting the boroughs of Barnstaple and 

 Totnes, was prior to the year 1204 set apart for the royal sport, the inhabi- 

 tants being allowed to cultivate such portions of it as had been essarted or 

 brought into cultivation subject to the forest law." These essarted portions 

 being alone a source of revenue to the crown, are the only portions 

 described in the record. Not a word is said about the great forest ; and its 

 very existence is ignored except as a matter of inference. In one place we 

 are told (fol. 95) that 'to Molland manor belongs the third penny of the 

 hundreds of Northmolton, Bampton, and Braunton, and [the agistment dues 

 of] every third animal [lying out] on the moors ' ; also that ' with Moreton 



' Exeter Domesday, fol. 334. ' Ibid. fol. 136. ' Ibid. fol. 315. 



*Ibid. fol. 128. » Ibid. fol. 334. Mbid. fol. 87^. 



1 Dartmoor Preservation Society's Publications, i, 65, 91. ^ Exeter Domesday, fol. 873. 



' Ibid. fol. 334. " Freeman, Norman Conquest, iv, 162. 



" Forest, says Mr. Turner in Select Pleas of the Forest (Selden Soc), is 'a tract of land within which a 

 particular body of law is enforced, having for its object the preservation of certain ztxriadSs, ferae naturae^ 



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