Part 58

[1374] See e.g. D. B. i. 222: 'Terra est 2 car. _Has_ habent ibi 3 sochemanni et 12 bordarii.' ... 'Terra est 3 car. Ibi sunt ipsae cum 9 sochemannis et 9 bordariis.' Ibid. i. 223: 'Terra est 1 car. _quam_ habent ibi 4 bordarii.' Ibid. i. 107 b: 'Terra est 7 car. et _tot_ ibi sunt.'

[1375] D. B. i. 222. Codestoche, Lidintone.

[1376] D. B. i. 289; 339 b, Bechelinge.

[1377] D. B. i. 342 b, Toresbi.

[1378] D. B. i. 339, Agetorne.

[1379] D. B. i. 174, Lappewrte.

[1380] D. B. i. 163, Berchelai.

[1381] D. B. i. 218 b, Stanford. Or let us take this case (D. B. i. 148): 'Terra est 3 car. In dominio est una et 4 villani habent aliam et tercia potest fieri.' Is this third team to be a team of four or a team of eight?

[1382] Seebohm, Village Community, 85.

[1383] As a specimen we take 10 consecutive entries from the royal demesne in Surrey in which it is said that _x_ villeins and _y_ bordiers have _z_ teams. We add half of _y_ to _x_ and divide the result by _z_. The quotients are 10·3, 4·0, 3·7, 3·5, 3·4, 2·7, 2·2, 1·9, 1·8, 1·4. If we massed the ten cases together, the quotient would be 2·8. We can easily find averages; but, even if we omit cases in which there is an exceptional dearth of oxen, the variations are so considerable that we must not speak of a type or norm.

[1384] Glastonbury Rentalia, 51-2: 'S. tenet 1 virgatam terre ... et si habet 8 boves debet warectare ... 7 acras. Si autem pauciores habet, warectabit pro unoquoque bove octavam partem 7 acrarum.' Ibid. 61: 'R. C. tenet unam virgatam ... et habebit 4 boves cum bobus domini.' Ibid. 68: 'G. tenet dimidiam hidam ... et si habuerit 8 boves...' Ibid. 78: 'L. tenet 5 acras ... et bis debet venire cum 1 bove et cum pluribus si habuerit...' Ibid. 98-9: 'M. tenet 1 virgatam ... si habuerit quatuor boves...' Ibid. 129: 'S. tenet 1 virgatam ... et debet invenire domino 1 carrum et 6 boves ad cariandum fenum.' Ibid. 130: 'M. tenet dimidiam virgatam ... et debet invenire 2 boves.' Ibid. 189: Three cases in which a virgater comes to the boon days with eight oxen. Larking, Domesday of Kent, App. 33: Customs of Hedenham: '...habebit unam virgatam terrae ... item habebit quatuor boves in pasturam domini.'

[1385] D. B. i. 211: 'Terra est dim. car. et unus bos ibi arat.'

[1386] D. B. i. 342 b, Toresbi.

[1387] Pollock, E. H. R. xi. 813. I venture to think that Sir F. Pollock has not answered his own argument (p. 220) for a constant _caruca_.

[1388] Inq. Com. Cant. 70.

[1389] Another example from a Northamptonshire column (D. B. i. 226) will show what we mean. Let H stand for hides and T for teamlands, and let the virgate be a quarter of a hide, then we have this series: 2 H (5 T), 2-1/2 H (4 T), 4 H (8 T), 1-1/4 H (3 T), 1-7/12 H (4 T), 3/8 H (1/2 T), 1/2 H (1 T), 2-1/2 H (6 T), 1-1/4 H (3 T), 2 H (4 T), 7/8 H (3 T). We see that T is integral where H is fractional.

[1390] Exceptionally we read in Kent (i. 9): 'Terra est dim. car. et ibidem sunt adhuc 30 acrae terrae.' And is not this a rule-proving exception? The jurors can not say simply 'land for half a team and thirty acres.' They say 'land for half a team and there are thirty acres in addition.'

[1391] D. B. iv. 497; Inq. Com. Cant. 97.

[1392] There can be little doubt that this is the right reading. See Round. Feudal England, 134.

[1393] Thus, D. B. ii. 39: 'Tunc 4 carucae in dominio, post et modo 2 ... et 2 carucae possunt restaurari.' To use our symbols, in Essex, Norfolk and Suffolk we obtain statements about _A_ and about _C_, but learn nothing about _B_, unless this is to be inferred from the increase or decrease that has taken place in _C_. We shall hereafter argue that, in spite of some appearances to the contrary, the carucates of East Anglia belong to the order _A_ and not to the order _B_.

[1394] Thus, D. B. i. 231: 'Rad. tenet de episcopo 4 car. terrae in Partenei. Terra est 4 car. In dominio sunt 2 et ... villani habent 2 car.' Just before this we have the other common formula: 'Rad. tenet ... 2 car. terrae in Toniscote. Duae car. possunt esse et ibi sunt.'

[1395] Thus, D. B. i. 231 b: 'Ipsa Comitissa tenuit Dunitone. Ibi 22 car. et dimid. T. R. E. erant ibi 12 car. Modo in dominio sunt 3 et ... villani ... habent 12 car.'

[1396] To me it looks as if the variations were due to a clerk's caprice. The Leicestershire survey fills 30 columns. Not until the top of col. 5 has the compiler, except as a rare exception, the requisite information. Then, after hesitating as to whether he shall adopt the '_x_ car. possunt esse' formula, he decides in favour of 'Terra est _x_ car.' This we will call Formula I. It reigns throughout cols. 5-13, though broken on three or four occasions by what we will call Formula II, namely 'T. R. E. erant ibi _x_ car.' At the top of col. 14 Formula II. takes possession and keeps it into col. 16. Then I. has a short turn. Then (col. 17) II. is back again. Then follow many alternations. At the top of col. 24, however, a simplified version of II. appears; the express reference to the T. R. E. vanishes, and we have merely 'ibi fuerunt _x_ car.' In the course of col. 26 this is changed to 'ibi _x_ car. fuerunt.' These two versions of II. prevail throughout the last six columns, though there is one short relapse to I. (col. 28).

[1397] The proof of this lies in the Inq. Com. Cant. and the Exon Domesday.

[1398] This appears on a collation of D. B. with the two records mentioned in our last note. See Round, Feudal England, 26.

[1399] D. B. i. 174: 'In omnibus his maneriis non possunt esse plus carucae quam dictum est.'

[1400] When _C_ varies from _B_, the statement about _C_ will sometimes be introduced by a _sed_ or a _tamen_ which tells us that things are not what they might be expected to be. D. B. i. 77 b: 'Terra est dimid. car. et tamen est ibi 1 car.' D. B. i. 222: 'Terra est dim. car. tamen 2 villani habent 1 car.'

[1401] As a wheat-grower Devon stands in our own day at the very bottom of the English counties. Its average yield per acre in 1885-95 was 21 bushels, while Cambridge's was 32. Next above Devon stands Monmouth and then comes Cornwall.

[1402] Marshall, Review of Reports to Board of Agriculture from Southern Departments, 524: 'The management of the land is uniform; here and there an exception will be found. The whole is convertible, sometimes into arable, and sometimes pasture. Arable is sown with wheat, barley, or oats, as long as it will bear any; and then grass for eight or ten years, until the land is recovered, and capable again of bearing corn.' See also p. 531: the lands go back to the waste 'in tenfold worse condition than [that wherein] they were in a state of nature.' It is just in the country which is not a country of village communities that we find this 'aration of the waste.'

[1403] Some parts of Worcestershire, for example, show a marked deficiency in oxen. On the lands of Osbern Fitz Richard (14 entries) there are about 102 teams, and there 'could be' 32 more. See D. B. i. 176 b. In some parts of Cheshire also there is a great deficiency.

[1404] D. B. i. 122 b: 'Luduham ... Terra 15 car. vel 30 car.' In the Exeter book (D. B. iv. 240) two conflicting estimates are recorded: 'Luduam ... In ea sunt 3 hidae terrae et reddidit gildum pro 1 hida. hanc possunt arare 15 carrucae. hanc tenet Ricardus de Comite. in ea sunt 3 hidae terrae et reddidit gildum pro 1 hida. hanc possunt arare 30 carrucae. hanc tenet Ricardus de Comite.'

[1405] D. B. i. 246 b.

[1406] Often a Yorkshire entry touching a waste vill gives no _B_. Therefore in my Tables I have omitted the number of the Yorkshire teamlands, lest hasty inferences should be drawn from it. I believe it falls between 5000 and 6000. It is much smaller than _A_, much greater than _C_.

[1407] Be it remembered that these waste vills can not send deputations to meet the justices, and that the representatives of the wapentakes may never have seen some of those deserts of which they have to speak. 'All of these vills,' they say on one occasion (i. 301), 'belong to Preston. In sixteen of them there are a few inhabitants; but how many we do not know. The rest are waste.'

[1408] See below, p. 471.

[1409] Devon, 2·1; Cornwall, 2·2; Derby, 3·9; Nottingham, 4·4; Lincoln, 5·0. The figure for Stafford is about as low as that for Cornwall; but Stafford has been devastated. See Eyton, Staffordshire, 30. Kent and Surrey would stand high. Kent would perhaps stand as high as Derby. But Lincoln has no peer, unless it be Norfolk, Suffolk, or Essex. Our reason for not speaking of these last three counties will appear by and by.

[1410] An essay by Mr W. J. Corbett which I had the advantage of seeing some time ago, and which will I hope soon be in print, will throw much new light on this matter.

[1411] I have roughly added up the carucates and teams of Norfolk, a laborious task, and have seen reason to believe that the figures for Suffolk would be of the same kind.

[1412] In dealing with Essex, Norfolk and Suffolk an equation connecting the hide or (as the case may be) carucate with the acre becomes of vast importance. I have throughout assumed that 120 acres make the hide or carucate. If this assumption, about which something will be said hereafter, is unjustified, my whole computation breaks down. Then in Norfolk there are (especially I think in certain particular hundreds) a good many estates for which no extent (real or rateable) is given. I have made no allowance for this. On the other hand, I believe that I have carried to an extreme in Norfolk the principle of including everything. I doubt, for example, whether some of the acres held by the parish churches have not been reckoned twice over. Also both in Essex and Norfolk I reckoned in the lands that are mentioned among the _Invasiones_, and in so doing ran the danger of counting them for a second time.

[1413] Also we may remark that in many respects the survey of Essex is closely akin to the survey of East Anglia; but in Essex nothing is said about the geldability of vills and therefore, unless the Essex hides and acres belong to the order of geldable units (_A_), our record tells us nothing as to the geld of Essex: an unacceptable conclusion.

[1414] Dorset, 15, 23-24.

[1415] In Dorset 22,000 acres are 'designedly omitted'; in Somerset nearly 178,000; in Staffordshire nearly 246,000. Mr C. S. Taylor puts the deficiency in Gloucestershire at 200,000 or thereabouts.

[1416] See above, p. 370.

[1417] D. B. ii. 160 b: A certain vill is 1 league 10 perches long, and 1 league 4-1/2 feet wide. Surely such a statement would never come from men who could use and were intending to use a system of superficial measurement.

[1418] D. B. ii. 170. Or take Westbruge (ii. 206): Two carucates; two teams and a half; 'this vill is 5 furlongs in length by 3 in breadth.' If every inch of the vill is ploughed, the carucate can only have 75 acres, and each team tills but 60. I have noted many cases in which this method will not leave 120 acres for the team.

[1419] D. B. i. 310.

[1420] D. B. i. 307 b.

[1421] D. B. i. 310. In these Yorkshire cases it is needless for us to raise the question whether the _totum_ that is being measured is the manor or the vill.

[1422] D. B. ii. 118 b.

[1423] D. B. i. 303 b (Yorkshire, Oleslec).

[1424] D. B. i. 303 b (Othelai).

[1425] D. B. i. 346 b (Bastune); 4 carucates for geld; land for 4 teams; arable land 8 quar. by 8.

[1426] D. B. i. 346 b (Langetof); 6 carucates for geld; land for 6 teams; arable land 15 quar. long and 9 wide.

[1427] D. B. i. 248 b (Rolvestune); 2-1/2 hides; land for 8 teams; 18 teams existing; arable land 2 leagues long and 1 [league] wide. Eyton (Staffordshire, 48) has a long note on this entry which makes against his doctrine that the teamland is 120 acres. He suggests that the statement by linear measure is a correction of the previous statement that there is land for 8 teams. Unfortunately, as we have seen, this entry does not stand alone. Morgan, op. cit. 34, speaks of some of these entries. Those which he mentions and which we have not noticed do not seem quite to the point. Thus (D. B. i. 263 b) of Edesberie we read 'land for 6 ploughs ... this land is a league long and equally wide.' We are not here expressly told that all the 'land' thus measured by lineal measure is arable. The cases of Dictune, Winetun, Grif and Bernodebi, which he then cites, are beside the mark, for what is here measured by lineal measure seems to be the whole area of the manor.

[1428] To make safer, I take the Dorset and Somerset teamlands from Eyton, the Gloucester teams from Mr Taylor. In the modern statistics the 'arable' covers 'bare fallow' and 'grasses under rotation'; the 'permanent pasture' includes 'grass for hay,' but excludes 'mountain and heath land used for grazing'; the total acreage includes everything but 'tidal water.' To bring up the particulars to the total, we should have to add (1) a little for orchards and market gardens, and having thus obtained the sum of all the land that is within the purview of the Board of Agriculture, we should still have to add (2) the sites of towns, houses, factories, etc., (3) tenements of less than an acre whereof no statistics are obtained, (4) roads, railways, etc., (5) waste not used for pasture, rocks, sea-shore, etc., (6) non-tidal water. The area not accounted for by our figures will be smallest in an inland county which has no large towns; it will be raised by sea-shore or by manufacturing industry.

[1429] Agricultural Returns, 1895, p. xiii: 'The actual loss of arable area in the interval covered by the last two decades ... is 2,137,000 acres.'

[1430] Mr Seebohm, Village Community, p. 103, seems to think that D. B. testifies to no more than 5 million acres of arable. But, even if we stop at the Humber, we shall have 9 million if a team tills 120.

[1431] D. B. ii. 116: T. R. E. there were 1320 _burgenses_.

[1432] D. B. ii 372.

[1433] It seems probable that in many cases the parish priest is reckoned among the townsmen, the _villani_.

[1434] See above, p. 20.

[1435] While historical economists can still dispute as to whether the population in 1346 was 5 millions, or only 2-1/2 (Cunningham, Eng. Industry, i. 301) guesses about 1085 are premature. M. Fabre has lately estimated the population of England under Henry II. at 2,880,000. But as to this calculation, see Liebermann, Eng. Hist. Rev. xi. 746.

[1436] See above, p. 366.

[1437] Walter of Henley, pp. 67, 71.

[1438] Walter of Henley, p. 19.

[1439] Rogers, Hist. Agric. i. 50-1.

[1440] Tour in the Southern Counties, ed. 3 (1767), p. 158. See also p. 242.

[1441] Agricultural Returns, 1895, p. 239. The figures given under the year 1894 which express the average yield of a statute acre in imperial bushels are for Australasia, 8·18; India, 9·00; Russia in Europe, 10·76; United States, 12·79. Apparently in South Australia 1,577,000 acres can produce as little as 7,781,000 bushels. As I understand, Sir J. B. Lawes and Sir J. H. Gilbert reckon that for an unmanured acre in England 16 bushels would be an average return, but that if the same acre is continuously sown with wheat, the yield will decline at the rate of nearly a quarter of a bushel every year. See Journ. Agricult. Soc., 3rd Ser. vol. iv. p. 87.

[1442] This calculus was officially adopted in 1891; see a paper by Sir J. B. Lawes and Sir J. H. Gilbert in Journ. Agric. Soc., 3rd Ser., vol iv. p. 102. I desire to express my thanks to the Secretary of the Board of Agriculture for directing my attention to this paper.

[1443] I understand that the average number of loaves that can be made from 280 lbs. of flour may be put at about 90.

[1444] Agricultural Returns, 1895, pp. 166, 90, 198. The old rough estimate of a quarter of wheat per head is much too high; the average is about 5·65 bushels. See the paper cited in note 1442. Now-a-days we can further allot to each inhabitant of the United Kingdom an amount of cereal matter other than wheat, to wit, barley, oats, beans, peas, maize, etc. which would take for its production perhaps as much as 1·5 times the area of the land that is required for the growth of the wheat that we have allotted to him. But much of this only feeds him by feeding animals that he eats; much only feeds him very indirectly by feeding horses engaged in the production or transport of food; and some of it can not be said to feed him at all. Then, on the other hand, large quantities of potatoes, sugar and rice are being eaten.

[1445] Wheat, oats, barley and peas are mentioned in D. B.; also rye (i. 257 b).

[1446] Hale, Worcester Register, p. civ.

[1447] Boldon Book, D. B. iv. 580-5. So in D. B. i. 69 the sheriff of Wiltshire receives equal quantities of wheat and malt and a larger quantity of oats. See also D. B. i. 179 b.

[1448] Domesday of St. Paul's, 164*. See also Cart. Rams. iii. 231.

[1449] Ibid, cxxxiv. 173.

[1450] Ibid. 173.

[1451] Calculations are difficult and may be misleading, not only because of the variability of medieval measures, but also because of the varying strength of beer. Mr Steele, the Chief Inspector of Excise, has been good enough to inform me that a bushel of unmalted barley weighing 42 lbs. would yield about 19·5 gallons of beer at 58°. The figures from St. Paul's seem to point to a strong brew, since they apparently derive but 8 gallons from the bushel of mixed grain. The ordinances of cent. xiii. (Statutes, i. 200, 202) seem to suppose that, outside the cities, the brewer, after deducting expenses and profit, could sell 8 to 12 gallons of beer for the price of a bushel of barley. If we suppose that the bushel of barley gives 18 gallons, the man who drinks his gallon a day consumes 20 bushels a year, and when the acre yields but 6 bushels of wheat, it will hardly yield more than 7 of barley. There is valuable learning in J. Bickerdyke, The Curiosities of Ale, pp. 54, 106, 154.

[1452] As to both meat and drink see Ine 70, § 1; T. 460, 468, 471, 473, 474; E. 118; Æthelstan, II. 1. § 1; D. B. i. 169, rents of the shrievalty of Wiltshire. Attempts to measure the flood of beer break down before the uncertain content of the _amber_, _modius_, _sextarius_, etc. In particular I can not believe that the amber of ale contained (Schmid, p. 530; Robertson, Hist. Essays, 68) 4 of our bushels; but, do all we can to reduce it, the allowance of beer seems large.

[1453] D. B. ii. 162 b: Cheltenham and King's Barton.

[1454] D. B. i. 205. The abbot of Peterborough is bound to find pasture for 120 pigs for the abbot of Thorney. If he can not do this, he must feed and fatten 60 pigs with corn (_de annona pascit et impinguat 60 porcos_).

[1455] Walter of Henley, 13. Every week each ox is to have 3-1/2 garbs of oats, and 10 garbs would yield a bushel.

[1456] Now-a-days the average acre in England will produce about 29 bushels of wheat or 40 of oats. Agricultural Returns, 1895, pp. 66, 70.

[1457] See above, p. 398.

[1458] Rogers, op. cit. i. 51.

[1459] Clearly so in some cases. See e. g. the first entry in Inq. Com. Cant. The teams of lord and villeins having been mentioned, we then read that the 'pecunia _in dominio_' consists of so many pigs, sheep, etc. Moreover, if all the cattle not of the plough were enumerated under the title _animalia_, there would not be nearly enough to renew the number of beasts of the plough. Again, when the capacity of the wood is stated in terms of the pigs that it will maintain, the number thus given will in general vastly exceed the number of pigs whose existence is recorded. Lastly, we see that at Crediton (iv. 107) where the lord has but 57 pigs, he receives every year 150 pigs from certain _porcarii_, whose herds are not counted. Throughout Sussex the lord takes one pig from every villein who has seven (i. 16 b). See also Morgan, op. cit. 56.

[1460] See above, p. 76.

[1461] Before we have gone through a tenth of the account of Essex, we have read of 'wood for' near 10,000 pigs. If the woods were full and this rate were maintained throughout the country, the swine of England would be as numerous T. R. W. as they now are. No doubt Essex was exceptionally wooded and many woods were understocked; still this mode of reckoning the capacity of wood-land would only occur to men who were accustomed to see large herds.

[1462] In the thirteenth century it is common to find that the acre of meadow is deemed to be twice or three times as valuable as the best arable acre of the same village, and a much higher ratio is sometimes found.

[1463] This appears from the parallel account of Westley given in D. B. and Inq. Com. Cant. (p. 19) where 'pratum 2 bobus' = '2 ac. prati.' Entries such as the following are not uncommon (I. C. C. p. 13): 'Terra est 4 car.; in dominio est una et villani habent 3 car. Pratum 1 car.' See Morgan, op. cit. 53-5.

[1464] Eyton, Dorset, 146.

[1465] In the above table all _vaccae_, _animalia_ and _animalia ociosa_ are reckoned in the third column. I believe that the two last of these terms cover all beasts of the bovine race that are not beasts of the plough. The horses are mostly _runcini_ and are kept for agricultural purposes. It may be doubted whether destriers and palfreys are enumerated.

[1466] Rot. Hund. ii. 570, 575. The calculation which gave these results was laborious; but I believe that they are pretty correct.

[1467] On the whole, the _valet_ of D. B., so far as it is precise, seems to me an answer to the question, What rent would a _firmarius_ pay for this estate stocked as it is? But there are many difficulties.