THE DOMESDAY SURVEY Another of the extra payments was 5 to the sheriff ' de gersuma.' This phrase is one which is always difficult to translate, but the amount is recognizable as that which a town or a county is sometimes entered in Domesday as paying to the queen. Norwich, in 1086, was paying 5 a year ' de gersuma regine,' and Warwickshire the same ' reginas pro gersuma.' 5 a year also was paid to the queen as a gift by Worcester- shire and by Northamptonshire. The county of Oxfordshire also paid 5 ' de gersumma reginje.' But, in spite of this association of the $ with the queen, I should look upon the payment at Colchester as akin to that which the sheriff received from some royal manors in the county, 1 and as consideration money for his exclusion from thejirma. The payments we have just been considering were made in addition to the ferm, and Domesday is careful to explain that the render in respect of the mint was also, at the time of the Survey, over and above the ferm. The passage relating to the local mint is, no doubt, difficult. It has been recently discussed by Mr. Andrew,* but I cannot agree with his conclusions. To understand it we must study it in conjunction with the mint entries for Ipswich and for Thetford. At Ipswich, as at Colchester, the moneyers had paid 4 a year under the Confessor, but their annual payment had been raised to 20 at the time of the Survey, though they were greatly in arrears. 8 At Colchester, as I read the passage, the annual payment had been similarly raised to 20, though the burgesses of Maldon shared the burden.* But, as at Ipswich, the payment seems to have proved too heavy, for the burgesses claim that the king (or his fermor) had remitted half of it. Nevertheless, they say, Bishop Walchelin, their fermor, is exacting from them 40.' Enormous as this demand may seem, Thetford was actually paying for its mint no less a sum than this at the time of the Survey. 8 It must be admitted, however, that sums so large as these are difficult to explain, for at Thetford, as Mr. Andrew points out, the sum of 4 a year was eventually remitted in express compensation of the loss of four moneyers, while at Colchester 3 a year was similarly remitted
- in defectu monetariorum ' under Henry II. down to his thirteenth year
(1167), when the amount rises to 4, which, we have seen, was the annual render from the moneyers at Colchester, as at Ipswich, under Edward the Confessor. 7 Yet, inexplicably large as are the renders due in 1086, I cannot agree with Mr. Andrew when he 'boldly' suggests 1 See p. 363 above.
- Numiimatif Chronicle, ser. 4, i. 161-2.
3 ' Monetarii reddebant per annum T.R.E. iiii libras pro moneta ; modo debent reddere xx libras ; ted de quatuor annis non reddiderunt nisi xxvii libras ' (fo. 290^).
- Coins of this period were issued from the Maldon mint.
5 ' Reddebant monetarii iiii libras T.R.E. . . . Et preter hoc reddunt burgenses de Colecestra et de Melduna xx libras pro moneta ; et hoc constituit Waleramus ; et advocant regem adturtorem quod condonavit illis x libras ; et ten' Walchelinus ep[is]c[opus] querit ab illas xl libras.'
- ' Reddit etiam modo regi xl libras de moneta ' (fo. 1 1 9).
7 It is evident that at Colchester and at Norwich in the twelfth century the remission of I a year represented the loss of one moneyer. 421
