THE DOMESDAY SURVEY Book, we find the marshes of Essex treated as feed for sheep ; and their chief product was the cheese. We may even believe that the * huge cheeses ' which excited the wonder of a later age were already known in the twelfth century, for ' great cheeses ' are entered as fetching sixpence each under Henry II., while the price of others was as low as twopence. 1 We are now justified in tracing back to an even earlier period this venerable practice. For in the Recfitudines, a document believed to date from the tenth century, the duties of the shepherd are described as in- cluding the milking of the ewes twice a day, and the making of cheese and butter. Among his perquisites were ' the milk of the herd for seven nights after the equinox and a bowl of whey or butter-milk each night during the summer.' : It will be observed that the milking of the ewes was then in the hands of men as it was in the days of Elizabeth ; and this confirms the belief that the whole practice was continuous. Of these primitive dairies down in the Essex marshes the memory is still preserved in the ' wicks ' which dot its coast. The ' wickes or dayries ' of the Tendring Hundred are represented in St. Osyth alone by Well Wick, Lee Wick, Wigborough Wick, and Cocket Wick ; and so are those of Canvey Island by Monks Wick, West Wick, North Wick, Farther Wick, and Knights Wick. When Benfleet and Canvey were ' disafforested ' in 1563, eight 'marshes ' in the island had names ending in ' wick.' The statements of Camden and of Norden are thus fully confirmed. The evidence moreover is clinched by a passage of great importance in the survey of St. Paul's manors in 1222. Of Tillingham we read that * in the marsh are four sheepwalks (bercarie), of which one is called Howich and can carry (sustinere) 180 head ; another is called Middelwich and can carry 1 30 head ; a third is called Doddeswich and can carry 1 32 head ; a fourth is called Pirimers and can carry 1 10 head.' * The total number of sheep, it will be seen, was 552, as against the 400 for which, according to Domesday, the Tillingham marshes had afforded feed in 1086.* Now that the meaning of c pasture for sheep ' has been thus made clear, its mention becomes sometimes of assistance in identifying doubt- ful manors. Essex possesses a Tilbury-by-Clare in addition to the better known East and West Tilbury (-on-the-Thames). Which of these was the * Tiliberia ' held by Thierri Pointel in 1086 ? Mr. Chisenhale-Marsh fo. 310). These cheeses must have been made from ewes' milk alone, and the witnesses' names date the charter as of 1 164-89. 1 Fifty 'magni casei ' were bought for Berkhampstead Castle in 1173 at a cost of 2J/., while 200 which were sent to Gloucester, cost only i 13*. d., that is twopence each (Pipe Roll, 19 Henry II. pp. 22, 23). But loo 'magni casei' sent to Arundel cost less than the others, namely z o/. jj. (ibid, p. 26). The wey of cheese was then selling at about 4/. 6J. 1 Andrews' The GU English Manor, p. 220. 1 Dometdaj of St. Pau/'i (Camden Society), p. 59. For the ' dairy aSai a " wyk " ' in the adjoin- ing parish of Dengie, see p. 372 note 5 above. Domesday records (i. 58) that at Buckland, Berks, on the banks of the Thames, there was a 'wick' producing yearly 10 weys of cheese ('Wica de x. pensis caseorum ') worth I 121. ^J.
- See p. 442 below. At another of St. Paul's manors, Walton-on-the-Naze, now well known for its
flock of Suffolk sheep, there was, in 1222, ' pastura in marisco et in terra susenna ad quadringentas oves cum suis fctibus,' and this marsh is named later ' Ewenemersh," carrying 400 ewes ' ad majus centum.' 373
