THE DOMESDAY SURVEY eye rather than the hand had measured them. Where, as at Braunstone (fo. 226) we read of 'one acre' of wood, we may suppose that it was kept up for the requirements of the manor. It is very singular that, in this instance, we find the manor, when held by the Ros family, more than four centuries after Domesday, similarly returned as containing ' one acre of wood.' ' Another point which has to be considered is the size of the perch employed. As Ellis observed, ' a larger perch than that fixed by the Statute of Measures is still in use for woodland ' ; ' and there is some evidence to show that this perch, in mediaeval England, was twenty feet in length. Such a perch, for instance, is mentioned in a grant to Grosmont Priory, temp. John, in Eskdale forest, Yorkshire,' and again in an Ivichurch charter, temp. Edward II. in Clarendon forest,* as also in a grant to Brinkburne Priory of land in ' Evenewode.' * Agard too speaks of this perch of twenty feet. Therefore, when king John, in 1203, granted, in Northamptonshire, to the monks of Bee forty-eight acres ' of the new clearing according to his perch ' {ad perticam nostrum) ' quit of essarts, he probably referred to a standard perch as distinct from that in use for woodland. But, apart from that increase of twenty per cent, in the Domesday measurements which would be involved by the use of a twenty foot perch, it is surely out of the question to assume that, at the time of Domesday, the woodland was either in rectangular blocks or was re- duced, on paper, by elaborate calculations, to their equivalent ; yet this assumption, it will be found, is involved in Mr. Eyton's calculations. In Lincolnshire we find similar measurements, even where the woodland is distinctly stated to be scattered (fier loco) over the estate. We must therefore conclude that, in those cases where the Domesday measurements are large, it is not possible to reduce them to any definite number of acres ; but, broadly speaking, there was a marked difference in 1086, as there is at the present time, in the distribution of forest land in the county. And although in such a case as that of Oundle we must not accept literally the Domesday measures, we may fairly infer that the process of clearing — or as it was termed ' essarting ' — was carried on extensively during the Middle Ages.' After surveying the manors held, at the time of its compilation, by the Crown, Domesday gives us, in their order, the tenants-in-chief (that is to say those who held directly from the Crown) with the lands they severally held. First come the church dignitaries, bishops and so forth, whether holding in their private capacity or as the official tenants of church lands. These are followed by the lay holders, headed by the
- Bridges' Northamptonshire., I. 29. ' Introduction to Domesday, I. 159.
» Monasticon AngUcanum, VI. 1025. * Ibid., VI. 417. * Ihid., VI. 332.
- loth Report Historical Report MSS. Commission, I. 352.
It might, of course, be urged that so great a tract of woodland as Domesday here suggests was largely or partially detached and at a distance from the manor. But although, in some counties, there are traces of such a system, I do not find it in Northamptonshire. 281
