This page needs to be proofread.

A HISTORY OF BERKSHIRE is. Afd. at Goosey, and no less than s. 6d. at Reading. For the grazing (de herbagio) 5 shillings were received at Long Wittenham, and at Appleford 21 shillings ' de lucro terra? dominicas.' But this last is a special phrase, which is also found at Droxford, Hants, where 12*. accrued ' pro lucro terras.' It probably implies that part of the demesne was let at a money rent. 1 One would like to be able to discover also some indication of the sheep-farming industry, but save for the early mention of a ' wick ' at Wantage, where the ewes' milk was probably the product, 2 there is none. It is not till two centuries later that a rental at Brightwaltham, in the down district, shows us the tenants finding men to wash and shear the lord's sheep, and bound to shift the lord's fold, while the keeper of the wethers is entitled to keep forty sheep in a fold of his own grazing with those of his lord. 3 As to the swine far more important at that time for food than the sheep there is never a doubt in Domesday. Their ' pannage ' in the woodlands, where they fattened on the beech-mast and the acorns in their season, forms a useful index to the distribution in the county of woods and forests at the survey. We read at the outset, under Windsor itself, of ' tantum silvas unde exeunt v porci de pannagio,' a phrase valuable as proving that in Berkshire the number of swine recorded was that which was received by the lord as tribute for pannage in his woods. But although this number might be presumed to be exact, it is often, as with other estimates in Domesday, suspiciously round. The evidence, however, is amply sufficient to show that, as in later times, the wooded districts were in the east and south-east of the county, and the open country in the west. Indeed we need not travel beyond the King's land to perceive that this was so. His woodlands were virtually confined to the Vale of the Kennet and the district to the east of that river. In the west it is true he had some scattered woods at Lambourn (10), and Shrivenham (20), and in the centre of the county some noteworthy exceptions at Basildon (120),* Compton (3), Winterbourne (3), and Bucklebury (100), as well as at Sutton Courtenay (40) to the north, but the great woodlands are where I have said. Although his forest of Windsor had encroached on those available for pannage, we find them at Windsor itself (55), Bray (60), Cookham (100), Wargrave (100), White Waltham (150), Warfield (100), Bark- ham (40), Finchampstead (200), Swallowfield (20), and Shinfield (90). Leaving the east we note, up the Kennet Valley, Reading (100), Earley (70), Aldermaston (30), Oakfield (50)," Thatcham (60), Kintbury (3), Hungerford (10). The woodlands in private hands present the same features. At 1 Compare the rents from demesne in The Domesday of St. Paul's (Camden Soc.), viii., Ixxxix., 70-71, 118-121. 1 See page 306 note 7 above. There is an important entry on the Pipe Roll for 1 1 30 of the purchase of 1500 sheep for restocking the royal manors of the county at a cost of 30 8/. d. (p. 122). 3 Custumals of Battle Abbey (Camden Soc.), 61, 67. Probably including Ashampstead. 6 This, perhaps, belongs rather to the eastern than to the Kennet district. 308