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A HISTORY OF WARWICKSHIRE close to the borough, with seven ; Tysoe, far to the south, with three ; and Atherstone-on-Stour, Billesley, Coughton, and Bearley, in the west of the county, with one apiece. Pillerton in the south and Wolverton near Warwick had also a house apiece. Four of these houses were valued at eightpence a year each and some at fourpence, but Ralf de Limesi's averaged a shilling each. Fourpence is markedly common in Domesday as a unit of rent for houses in towns. From the ' barons ' the record turns to those humbler folk, the ' bur- gesses,' nineteen of whom, it tells us, had houses ' with sac and soc and all customary dues and so held them in King Edward's time.' This, in Pro- fessor Maitland's opinion, is a ' difficult ' passage, and he suggests that 'we are likely to see here a relic of the ancient " house-peace," ' and of the due payable to its owner for breaking it. 1 Only four houses are entered as having been pulled down to make room for the castle (propter situm castelli), but the fact that any had to be destroyed supports the view that William founded, 1 rather than repaired, the stronghold. The service by land and sea to which the burgesses of Warwick were liable was represented, as in other cases, by a fixed commutation. When the king went forth to war by land, ten burgesses joined him on be- half of the whole body, and the man who was summoned and failed to go had to pay five pounds, clearly thzfyrd-wite. When the king sailed against his foes by sea, the burgesses could send him four ' bat-sueins ' or four pounds in money. The liability of a town so far inland as Warwick to provide mariners has been deemed a difficulty 3 ; but we have to remember that at that period rivers were larger and vessels smaller. In the adjoining county of Worcestershire we meet with Turchil, 'King Edward's steersman' (stirman, fo. 174-b), and Eadric, 'who was in King Edward's time steersman (stermannus) of the Bishop (of Worcester)^ ship and leader of his men in the King's service.' 4 We read of William employing ships and ' buthsecarlas ' in his siege of the Isle of Ely, and the Domesday entry on Malmesbury is worth comparing with the Warwick one, for we read there (fo. 64b) of the town sending the king twenty shillings ' ad pascendos suos buzecarl' ' or of one man going thence in person. The Warwick ' batsueins,' in short, would serve as mariners in the fleet, and the doings of the dreaded Danes had proved that their long galleys could penetrate far up the English rivers. With the king's dues from the borough I have already dealt, 5 but Earl Eadwine's dues annexed to his manor of ' Cotes' present a point of difficulty. For ' the borough ' is spoken of as if the earl received all its dues." This he cannot have done, as the opposite column shows. I 1 Domesday Book and Beyond, pp. 989. See p. 277, note i, above. > Mr. Benjamin Walker in his ' Notes ' on the Domesday Survey of Warwickshire (pp. 4-5) observes that boatswain, by which we understand a steersman or some sort of petty officer on board a ship, would be very far from a correct translation of " batsuein " in the present case. . . . they furnished his navy with four " Boat-servants," without implying that they possessed any knowledge of navigation, which, indeed, could not be expected in inhabitants of such an inland town as Warwick.' Heming's Cartulary, p. 82. See p. 271. ' Hec terra cum burgo de Warwic,' etc., etc. 290