86 
VINE. 
yards are frequently noticed in the descriptive ac- 
counts of Doomsday ; and those of England are even 
mentioned by Bede as early as the commencement 
of the eighth century. Doomsday presents to us a 
particular proof that wine was made in England 
during the period preceding the conquest ; and 
after the conquest the bishop of Ely appears to have 
received at least three or four tuns of wine an- 
nually, as tithes, from the produce of the vineyards 
in his diocese ; and to have made frequent reserva- 
tions in his leases of a certain quantity of wine for 
rent. A plot of land in London, which now forms 
East Smithfield and some adjoining streets, was 
withheld from the religious house within Aldgate, 
by four successive constables of the Tower, in the 
reigns of Rufus, Henry, and Stephen, and made 
by them into a vineyard, to their great emolument 
and profit. In the old accounts of rectorial and 
vicarial revenues, and in the old registers of eccle- 
siastical suits concerning them, the tithe of wine is 
an article that frequently occurs in Rent, Surry, 
and other counties. 
The inhabitants of Marseilles and Narbonne had 
some vines when Gaul was conquered by Julius 
Cresar, but the progress of their cultivation was 
prohibited by Domitian ; and the Gauls, as well as 
the Britains and Spaniards, were not permitted to 
plant them till the reign of that excellent emperor 
Probus. He was sensible that the promotion of 
agriculture ought to be inseparable from a good 
government; and that the reign of a prince can 
