Page:VCH Norfolk 2.djvu/68

NOTE The reader should bear in mind throughout that the date of the Domesday Survey is 1086; that ' the time of King Edward,' to which it refers, normally means the date of his death (5 Jan. 1066) : and that the intermediate date, which is sometimes spoken of as * afterwards ' and sometimes as ' when received,' is that at which the estate passed into the hands of the new holder. When the word ' semper ' is used it means that the figures were the same in 1086 as 1066. The Domesday ' ploughland ' or 'carucate ' is not divided in Norfolk, as in other counties, into eight ' bovates,' but smaller holdings are expressed either in acres or as fractions of the ' ploughland,' which may probably be regarded as a fiscal, not an areal, unit. In Norfolk the word ' virgate ' is of somewhat rare occurrence, ' 30 acres ' being used instead. ' Demesne,' in the Norfolk survey, is used in two senses : manors held * in demesne ' were those which the tenant-in-chief (who held directly of the crown) retained in his own hands, instead of enfeoffing under-tenants therein ; but when 'the demesne ' of a manor is spoken of, the term denotes that portion which the holder (whether a tenant-in-chief or only an under-tenant) worked as a home farm with the help of labour due from the peasants who held the rest from him. Of the peasantry the three classes are styled, in descend- ing order, villeins, bordars, and serfs ; above them were the ' free men ' and sokemen, survivals from before the Conquest, who are discussed in the introduction. The essential element of the plough (' caruca ') was its team of oxen, always reckoned in Domesday as eight in number. Apart from the plough-oxen the live stock on the lord's demesne is generally, though not regularly, entered in the Norfolk survey, a feature which adds greatly to its length, and is peculiar to the three eastern counties. It comprises horses (usually ' rounceys,' a term familiar to readers of Chaucer), asses and mules, ' beasts,' i.e. cows, sheep, swine, goats, and hives of bees. Thus the 'astonishing attention to details' spoken of as characterizing the agricultural division of the latest census of the United States, where all these are similarly enumerated even to the swarms of bees, was actually anticipated in Domesday, when the native chronicler bitterly complained that the king's questions were so searching that not 'an ox nor a cow nor a swine was left that was not set down in his writ.' It must be remembered that when Domesday speaks of a place as held by a certain tenant, it does not follow that the whole of it is meant. It may have comprised other manors, which form the subject of separate entries. The assessment of geld in East Anglia is expressed in terms of pence per pound. For every pound of geld assessed on the hundred each ' vill ' pays a definite number of pence, as is explained in the introduction. It should be remembered that the measurements given are very rough, and indicate rather the shape than the size of the areas to which they relate, so that no c.ilculation of acreage can safely be based upon them. 38